


Modus Vivendi

by RedxMoonxRose



Series: Threads of Fate [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, F/M, Foreknowledge, Gamer!OC, Harry Potter Has a Twin, Magic, Main Character Adapts Fast, Metamorphmagus, More OC Than Self-Insert, Multi, Parseltongue, Sass, Seer, Self-Insert/OC - Freeform, Seriously OP main character, Snakes, Sorry Not Sorry, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The Gamer, this is my sandbox
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-01-26 15:35:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21376447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedxMoonxRose/pseuds/RedxMoonxRose
Summary: Only a fool knowingly allows the Sword of Damocles to hang over their head. She is reincarnated, as Evelyn Potter, and decides to make the best of it. Armed with the memories of the world from her past life and powers that none would expect she sets out to stop Voldemort and change the Wizarding World before he can get his grubby, immortal hands on her little brother.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Threads of Fate [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541053
Comments: 75
Kudos: 195





	1. Vagary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: E. It’s not that rating in the beginning, but it’s going to get there, so might as well put it now so everyone knows what they’re getting into. 
> 
> Author’s Note: … Hi there. Yes, this is a Harry Potter SI/OC fanfiction, in fact, it’s a complete rework of my very first published fanfiction _The Bonds That Shape Us._ I honestly couldn’t keep writing that version anymore, however, as I realised that I had written that series' Evelyn as though she was an insert when she wasn’t… she just knew stuff was happening without much context. Anyway. This is a complete rework of that series but also vastly different, there are some things that are the same but everything else is new and different.
> 
> One of those things being, if you’ve read the tags, this series Evelyn is ‘The Gamer’. I’m not sorry, I love RPGs and ‘The Gamer’ types of stories. Hopefully, I can write this in a way that works and that people like, but I’m having fun writing this and I think it’s working myself so… we shall see. This series also has a lot of my personal loves in it, such as name meanings and constellations and stars, those types of things. A lot of research has gone into this, but if you see something wrong, please let me know. Onwards!

** **

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter One**   
**Vagary**   
_an unexpected and inexplicable change in a situation or in someone's behaviour_

* * *

**(Tuesday the 7th of February, 1984. The Smallest Room, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, England.)**

** _(There’s _ ** _a woman with vibrant red hair that flows over her shoulders, who smiles so bright as she smothers a dark-haired baby with kisses and proclaims them as her little princess. A woman who’s bright green eyes fill with terror and determination, as tears threaten to overflow as she runs from the flash of green. She leaves kisses on their heads one last time as she places them into their shared cot and tells them that they are loved. Then a droplet of crimson lands on the floor with a shallow splash as she pricks her finger with a needle._

_And for a second, hundreds of drawings, on each and every surface of the shared nursery light up like a beacon as the stairs creak. It all still fades to black with a flash of green._

_There’s a man with round, wireframe glasses and warm hazel eyes, who laughs a booming laugh as he spins a dark-haired baby through the air and proclaims that they’ll be on a broom in no time at all. A man who doesn’t hesitate when there was a deafening bang, the door exploding inwards. He only has one goal in mind, two little dark-haired babies safe and sound. It doesn’t matter to him at all if he isn’t around to see them grow, as long as they are safe. _

_His hand tightens around the grasp of his wand but it all still fades to black with a flash of green.)_

She blinked her eyes open, the vestige of deep, heavy sleep insistently tugged at her mind as she struggled to shake away the cobwebs lingering from her unfamiliar yet familiar dream that reminded her of something that she just couldn’t place her finger on even though it was just right there, that little bit out of reach.

Then she just sort of stared.

She blinked again, hoping for some sort of clarity to come bursting through her hazy thoughts.

No, still there.

There was a ceiling above her, painted a dark blue, but not the midnight blue she had painted her own so many months ago. In fact, everything about the room she was in was varying shades of blue. The painted walls, the carpeted floor, even the bedding on the oak wood bed. Wherever she was, it most certainly was not her own room.

(Her room had been shades of walnut furniture, with a wooden floor and a midnight blue ceiling with constellations painted across it. It had taken her months to do.)

Moving felt strangely sluggish and was a wholly uncoordinated experience as she struggled to lift herself up onto her elbows, trying to get her thoughts into some semblance of order, struggling to remember where she was. What had happened to her? She looked about the room, trying to place it. Her memory was fuzzy. Had she fallen asleep wearing her glasses again? It would explain why everything seemed so visible; however, she could feel neither the usual weight of them on her face nor see the blur of frames.

A game. Why was that the only thing spinning about in her head? A game. She had agreed to play some sort of game. That was the only thought that was very clear in her mind. What type of game she had no idea, as she didn’t know of any games that led to being in a room she didn’t recognise?

Maybe this was just another dream, a strangely vivid dream within a dream, but a dream none the less. Even though she couldn’t remember actually falling asleep. Actually, never mind that, she couldn’t even remember what she had done yesterday at all now that she thought about it. From start to finish the day was a void. She shook her head in confusion. Exactly what _had_ she done yesterday? She frowned for a moment and focused, struggling to dredge up anything about the last twenty-four hours as she flopped back down on her back.

Oh. That’s right. She had died.

She cursed as she jerked upwards in surprise. A patchwork blanket tangled itself about her legs and she went rolling over the side of the small, rather lumpy bed she had awoken in. Her forehead ricocheted off the floor and she tumbled onto several toys that had been scattered across the floor rather painfully. She groaned at the feel of a train in her back before pulling herself up to sit on the cluttered floor only to then freeze, eyes growing wide as an unexpected obstruction invaded her vision.

The obstruction in question was a box; green, semi-transparent, with white text.

**Critical Hit! -15HP  
HP: 160 / 175**

** [Eureka! They say a hit to the head can make a genius; they were right. Your INT has increased by 1] **

**[Due to afflicting pain upon yourself, a new skill has been created and added to your list]**

**[Physical Endurance] [Lv.: 1] **[PP to next Lv.: 95]  
**[Passive]**

Increases physical endurance, decreasing damage from physical attacks by **3%**

**] - - - [**

She stared. When it refused to go away on its own, she found the [X] in the upper right-hand corner of the window and tapped. Then she froze again after noting the size of her hands. Hands that were not the size of hands belonging to an adult. A feeling of trepidation began to crawl up her spine as something dreadfully heavy settled at the bottom of her stomach. It had hurt when she had fallen off the bed, rightly too, as she was fairly certain that she had fallen onto some Legos in the mix of all the other broken garbage thrown about the room.

_‘Lucid dreams hurt, right?’_

She looked about the room, taking in the fine layer of dust that seemed to cling to just about every surface there was. The room was a mess, cluttered with broken toys and furniture. There was a bookcase lodging dusty books that looked like they had never been touched, what looked like a bent air rifle under the bed and beside the single wardrobe sat a big-bodied television with a broken screen that looked like someone had jammed their foot through it.

A tall, broken mirror rammed into the far corner, wedged between the wardrobe and the end of the bed she had tumbled off then caught her attention and she shuffled closer. It looked as though something had been thrown into the top half of it, shattering the glass but not rendering it unusable, and she was immediately caught off guard by the green eyes that were just that little bit too vibrant, just that little bit too bright and framed by thick black lashes. Dark hair fell to her shoulders with the slightest of curls, but she was still focused on the eyes.

She paused, taking in the baby fat that clung to her cheeks and the fact that she was three foot at a stretch before her attention focused back on the eyes as she struggled to figure out just what they reminded her of before it suddenly popped into her head. The brilliant green meteor that had been pictured lighting up a small town in the mountains of India.

She really liked these eyes; they would give anyone a pause.

Then with a blink, she noticed a piece of paper that was suddenly stuck to the frame of the mirror, a piece of paper which hadn’t been there before she had closed her eyes. She reached out with tiny, childlike fingers and pulled. It was written on paper a rich emerald green, and the words seemed to have been printed in a font that reminded her of Harry Potter.

**Welcome, Gamer!**

**You have been randomly selected as the lucky player that gets to experience a once in a lifetime experience in the World of Magic! **

**Good Luck!**

Just as she had finished reading the last word, but before she had even taken in what it all meant, the paper then _shattered _into _pixels _before disappearing into the ether. She stared at her hands in utter disbelief as her mind raced to absorb what she had just found out. She was half tempted to slap herself across the face. This… world couldn’t be what she thought it was, could it? Because if it was, then her new eyes were reminding her of something else entirely, something that she remembered from her dream.

Or was it a memory?

The sinking feeling in her stomach was back and materialised even further.

_‘Shit.’_

She stared at her new self in the mirror, at the eyes that were even brighter than the woman in the dream’s had been. She couldn’t think of any way to explain the fact that she’d not gotten Lily Evans' emerald eyes, but emeralds that looked as if they’d been dropped into liquefied killing curse. Her mother’s eyes and not. Because that was who had been in her dream, memory, whatever, in that familiar and unfamiliar scenery the night the Potters had gone up against Voldemort for the last time.

But, even as her mind raced at the fact that she was a _Potter_, she couldn't help but smile at the fact that she seemed to be a blend of both of this body’s parents. It was a little something to remember them by when she looked in the mirror. Something to remember the parents that had given their lives for a child that wasn’t their daughter, not really.

**[Due to the continuous observation of your surroundings, a new skill has been created and added to your list]**

**[Observe] [Lv.: 1]** [PP to next Lv.: 90]  
**[Active]**

A skill which allows the user to gather detailed information about persons, landmarks and items. The higher the level of this skill, the greater the data obtained

**] - - - [**

She blinked, before remembering that game mechanics were also a part of her world now. She then paused as a thought occurred to her. ‘_Universal commands are universal…’ _Running through her options, she picked the one that might just tell her the most. “Character? No. Stats? Ah-ha!”

(Her voice broke halfway through the sentence. Seemed like voice exercises were needed.)

**] – Status – [**

Name: Evelyn Rose Potter [Lv.: 0] [Exp to next Lv.: 1000]

Age: 3

Class: The Gamer

Title: Orphan

HP: 175 / 175 (0.02/s)

MP: 111 / 111 (0.02/s)

STR: 1 / VIT: 2

DEX: 2 / AGI: 1

INT: 15 / WIS: 12

CHA: 0 / LUK: 1

Stat Points: 0

Currency: £0 / ʛ0

** Defining Traits **

**[ - Potter Origins* - ] **[ - ]

25% PP towards **Potioneering**

+1 DEX and 2 CHA per Level

**[ - Evans Origins* - ] **[ - ]

Gain an additional +2 skill points for every skill book read and an additional +1 ability points for every ability bonus book read

+1.5 INT and 1.5 WIS per Level

**[ - Gamer’s Body - ] **[ - ]

Grants a body that allows one to live life like a game. After sleeping in a bed, HP and MP will be completely restored and most status ailments will be cured

**[ - Gamer’s Mind - ] **[ - ]

Allows one to calmly and logically think things through  
+15% EXP gained from all sources (except abilities)  
+100% PP towards subjects of interest and everything related to them  
-50% PP towards subjects of disinterest

**] - - - [**

_‘Hm.’_

She rested her chin on her raised fist as she stared at the screen before her, fairly surprised by what the game had already given her. The bonuses from her father's origins while were nice, they weren’t extra points like her mothers. She could already imagine all the hours she was about to spend in the local library. She—

—oh right.

Evelyn. Her name was Evelyn now. She needed to internalise that.

Tapping a baby-sized finger against a fairly chubby cheek, Evelyn thought of all the possibilities her new ability had unexpectedly opened up for her. What would happen if she were to die in this world? She guessed it would really depend on the rules it was operating on, and the letter hadn’t come with an instruction manual or guidebook.

Moving on, the fact that she had both **Luck **and **Charisma **confused her. Normally games she played that had a **Luck **score didn’t then also have a **Charisma **score and vice versa. To have both… well, that just opened even more possibilities. She had once done a playthrough of _Fallout: New Vegas _where she had pumped everything into **Luck.**

It had made for an… interesting time to say the least.

Her stats themselves, now that she looked at them from a critical point of view, seemed to be leaning towards a magic build already. That was fine with her, she was in the world of magic, but she did typically play characters that were a mixed bag of tricks types and Evelyn wasn’t seeing much reason why she couldn’t do the same here too, what with the **Charisma **score. Her go too kind of character to play had always been a combination of rogue and mage; a bard, so to speak.

Able to talk their way out of any situation and encourage others with just their words? Check. Able to use a range of weapons, pickpockets and locks, and cast magic? Check.

She was going to make the most of her new life, one that played by video game rules and she was _really _good at exploiting those for all they were worth. The random glitches that hadn’t been patched in forever that let you duplicate skill books? Places where you could fall through the world and skip a hard boss? She knew them all off by heart.

She almost made to rub her hands together like some evil genius but refrained. Barely.

All that seemingly sorted out in her head, Evelyn was just about to close the window so she could go explore the world and find out just _when _she was in the timeline when with a tilt of her head she realised that both her origin traits seemed to have little stars beside them. She tapped on the Potter one first and was rewarded with a small screen on top of her **[Status] **window. Without looking at it, she dragged it off to the side and then opened up the Evans one so that she could see them both side by side.

**] – Potter Origins – [**

Grants access to the Seer ability through Peverell lineage

Grants access to the Metamorphmagus ability through Black lineage

**] - - - [**

“What.”

**] – Evans Origins – [**

Grants access to the Parselmouth ability through Slytherin lineage

**] - - - [**

_“What.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mwhaha, maximum power! I have a thing for making OP!OC-stories and then trying to make the story work around them in a way that makes it fun and work and doesn’t seem like they just one-shot their way through the story. And, as you can see, this isn’t the normal magic world we’re used to it. It’s full of headcanons and fanon!
> 
> I hope this doesn’t turn you off from the story, but I get it if it does. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. Also, yes, I know I haven’t uploaded the new chapter of _Through the Valley of Shadows_ yet but I’m having massive writer's block. It should be up by next month at the latest though!


	2. Condemnant Quod Non Intellegunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The timeline of this story is going to be slightly different from the original, due in part to some mistakes Rowling made, so expect things happening at times different times than they had originally.

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Two**  
**Condemnant Quod Non Intellegunt  
** _they condemn what they do not understand_

* * *

**(Tuesday the 7th of February, 1984. 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, England.)**

**The **seventh stair creaked slightly under purposefully light footfalls and Evelyn froze, before glancing down to glare at the carpeted salmon pink monstrosity beneath her. Thankfully, however, it seemed as though no-one else in the house had heard, masked as it was by the loud cartoons emanating from what she presumed was the living room. Hunched down into a crouch was a terrible way to go downstairs, but here she was like some peculiar squirrel as she tried to avoid detection from the unfriendly hostiles—her maternal family.

It had also given her the self-explanatory **[Sneak] **skill, so the crouched descent down the stairs continued.

Unsurprising the downstairs of the house was decorated much the same as the upstairs, in pastel shades of beige, peach and more salmon pink. Evelyn was barely able to contain the cringe that wanted to ripple out of her. She hated salmon pink nowadays. It was the colour _everything _had been in her room at the orphanage Before. Granted, she had been sharing a few with three other girls at the time, but she definitely remembered reading somewhere that pink had been a boy’s colour once, and well, they could have it back.

The only thing that seemed to be prominent from the hallway was that her captives liked taking pictures. The wall opposite the staircase was covered in frames of all varying sizes, all of which depicted the Dursleys in some sort of perfect family lighting. There was not a single picture of her or Harry, but she hadn’t been expecting much different. She and her twin were the smudges on the Dursley name that they no doubt wished they could blast off the map as Walburga Black did with the Black family tree.

_‘What does _that _look like now?’ _she wondered since the world had been shaken up with fanon like no-one’s business. Or was it just her own personal headcanons? The Evans being related to Salazar Slytherin had been one she had read years ago and applied to her own vision of the world of magic… She would have to investigate that at a later date.

There was a half table nuzzled against the wall opposite the stairs where sat a telephone and a small pad of post-it notes. Every single pencil in the little pot next to them was sharpened to a fine point and in general, everywhere she looked was orderly and straight. She was mildly impressed, as it was no doubt hard to achieve with a family like the Dursleys.

She continued through the hallway, only to stop before the famous cupboard under the stairs which was opened the smallest of cracks. She peered through the gap and was surprised to find that there was no small cot sandwiched inside, only numerous pairs of stacked shoes, a couple rather ugly looking umbrellas and a few extra bits and bobs.

“Girl.”

She paused.

The tone of thinly veiled disgust was not one she had much experience with, but she _had_ dealt with enough bullies in her time that she managed a look of indifference as she turned towards her disgruntled caretaker, who was stood in the doorway leading into the kitchen. With the dull blonde hair and dishwater blue eyes, paired with the off-colour, cake-like foundation and the bright fuchsia painted lips it was no wonder that Petunia Dursley née Evans had been so jealous of her younger sister.

Especially with that _neck. _Rowling hadn’t been joking around.

“I see that you’ve finally decided to _grace _us with your presence, so you can go help that _brother _of yours with breakfast.”

Evelyn tilted her head slightly at the word choice but said nothing as she watched the hag turn on sharp heels and disappear into the living room which was through another doorway off to the side. She was guessing that the other door between it and the kitchen was a downstairs toilet. And with just the woman’s appearance, she was able to determine that she was in the book-verse, and not the movies, which meant that considering she was three then it was either eighty-three or eighty-four, depending on how many months into three she was.

Before she hadn’t even been born until the very end of the nineties and had grown up in early two thousand. It was a vastly different experience considering Evelyn had absolutely no clue on how to fully operate the telephone before her, all she knew was to spin the wheel to the number until it… _clicked? _No doubt she would say something about something or someone that hadn’t yet happened too, so she also had that experience to look forward to.

Although if that did happen, she did have the excuse of saying that she had seen it in a vision—one of the perks of being a seer she guessed.

**] - Quest Alert - [**

**(Lv.: 1) Breakfast at the Dursleys  
**It’s time for feeding at the Zoo and as per usual, little Dudderkins and Papa Walrus need more food than an actual zoo.  
Time to shake a tail feather and help your little brother with the cooking before he gets bacon grease over him.

**Objectives:  
**0/10 Pieces of Bacon  
0/7 Pancakes  
0/5 Eggs  
0/7 Pieces of Toast  
0/2 Coffees  
0/1 Orange Juice  
0/5 Hash Browns  
0/8 Sausages

**Rewards:**  
100 EXP**  
**1 Piece of Toast  
1 Sausage  
1 Piece of Bacon  
£1.00

**Failure:  
**No food

**] - - - [**

At the sight of the list of food that she and Harry were required to cook, Evelyn’s jaw almost dropped. Then the last sentence of the quest description finally registered in her mind and she shot into the kitchen as though a dementor itself was behind her. The sight that greeted her made both her stomach drop and her heart jump up into her throat.

Wobbling on a tiny, broken stool with even more unstable toddler limbs, her little brother’s squinted green eyes were just barely able to see over the hood of the cooker as he steered around the pieces of bacon sizzling in the pan. He wobbled again, and almost bought the pan with him, and Evelyn was removing him from the situation before he had even registered she had entered the room. She pried his hands from the panhandle and wrapped her arms under his armpits, carefully moving backwards until his feet touched the floor.

While the scene of Matilda cooking her own pancakes had been adorable to watch, seeing a similar scene happening before her very eyes with her own gender-bent version of the little magical girl had almost aged her ten years. Having a sibling to look after was going to be detrimental to her health, she could see the grey hairs already.

After a beaming smile so familiar to the one she had seen their father give in her dreams directed her way, Evelyn then suddenly found herself with an armful of weepy, happy, confused toddler and she blinked in surprise at the sudden change in situation, because why on earth was Harry now _crying _at the sight of her when he had been so happy two seconds before?

Through a messy combination of toddler speech and tears, she could just about piece together the story of what had happened before she had woken up. Apparently, the hag had gotten annoyed with something Harry had done during breakfast and had hit him over the head with a frying pan, and after seeing _that_, Evelyn had unleashed a blast of uncontrollable magic. Fast forward and Evelyn had landed herself in a deep sleep because of the strain the blast had put on her little body and off to sleep she went until the new Evelyn had woken up.

Apparently, that event had also led the Dursleys to move the twins from the cupboard under the stairs and up into Dudley’s spare bedroom.

She struggled to hold the anger burning in her chest in check at the thought of tiny, underfeed Harry unconscious on the ground after being hit with a frying pan and she knew then and there that she had already somehow gotten far too attached to the little brother she had never had before and knew she would do anything to protect him from harm. Considering all the dangers she knew would befall him in the future she most certainly had her work cut out for her.

Luckily for her, she had the power of video game logic on her side.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as though she also had the power of anime on her side too, but considering all the bonus powers being **[The Gamer]** gave her… she was fine without.

After a moment of soothing Harry’s tears, Evelyn laid a kiss on his forehead—which led him to beam up at her in a way that made her heart flutter—and sent him off to prepare the toast and juice while she handled everything else they were required to cook as there was no way that she was making him cook anything that could spit grease into his eyes at any time.

She took her time to move through the kitchen to familiarize herself with the area, before then gathering up all the ingredients that Harry himself hadn’t gotten to yet. After having turned down the flame for the hob the bacon was cooking on, of course, as her little brother had been attempting to cook ashy bacon and while she would have loved nothing more than to serve the Dursleys burnt bacon, she knew that such an action would lead to suffering in one way or another for Harry.

It took maybe half of an hour for her to get everything all done and dished, during which she had apparently levelled the **[Cooking]** skill to two without beforehand knowledge that she had even unlocked the skill. Still, she preferred the opinion she had picked of having new notifications being sent to a blinking scroll located in her peripheral vision that needed opening then having a random box popping up, interrupting whatever it was that she was doing at the time.

She then paused as she was about to place the mugs of coffee on the table, a thought jumping to the forefront of her mind.

Looking over her shoulder, she watched as her brother set about moving all the dirty pans into the sink. In the moment that he was semi turned towards her, Evelyn caught sight of the scar she had somehow not noticed. It wasn’t the weird scratched N right above his eyebrow, but a scar that looked almost like actual lightning itself crackling across the skin.

_‘Well, that’s… different.’ _

If anything, it looked like some of the fan art she had seen Before of what people imagined the scar looked like before the movies had come out. To Evelyn, however, it looked exactly like her brother’s head had been split open and then healed jagged and wrong. It reminded her of just was hidden within the scar and her lips thinned.

Then the sound of the stairs creaking under a heavy load reached her ears, and she took a step back from the table. Just in time to see both the hag and her spawn walk in. Much like his mother, Dudley looked very much like his book counterpart with his wide girth and dull blonde hair. It was an impressive size for a toddler only a few weeks older than the twins themselves. Overindulgence towards a child’s behaviour was counted as child abuse as well, right? At least, that was what Doctor Phil had taught her.

She gave a mental shrug as she moved to help Harry plate up his breakfast, which consisted of a single _unbuttered _slice of toast, one sausage and a tiny piece of bacon. And a small glass of juice. It looked like a shot glass more than anything and Evelyn’s left eye twitched. She was definitely going to be hoarding food and drink in her **Inventory **for him.

As Dudley made his approach to the table, the man of the house arrived. Where his wife had twice as much neck as the average person, Vernon had hardly any. The sight of him reminded her of Mister Potato Head, especially with the moustache, but then that was insulting to the toy potato. Did he crush Petunia when they—?

Nope.

She wasn’t going there, felt sick just thinking about it. Curse her morbid curiosity.

It was only after the Dursleys had finished their breakfast and disappeared _out the front door_ that Harry and Evelyn were allowed to have their own breakfast. _After _they cleaned everything up, however, as the table looked like a pig feeding trough. The only clean part of it had been where Petunia had sat. Evelyn fought the urge to just throw the entire damn table through the glass doors that led out into the conservatory. She didn’t know how the hag had survived before the twins had been dropped off at the doorsteps.

Probably saw it as her being a great housewife as she cleaned up after her husband and son. At least she cleaned the rest of the house herself, seeing as how she didn’t trust the twins to live up to her level of cleaning expectations. That suited Evelyn just fine. All this cooking was already far too much for her brother to do, and they still had _more _chores after that.

**] - Quest Complete - [**

**(Lv.: 1) Breakfast at the Dursleys**

**Rewards:**  
100 EXP**  
**1 Piece of Toast  
1 Sausage  
1 Piece of Bacon  
£1.00

**] - - - [**

She didn’t think it was in the Dursleys nature to reward either her or Harry for the work they did, so she presumed the money was simply a part of the changes the world had been forced through when it had been made into a game for her. Usually, all quests had a money reward and while a pound to her Before would have been nothing at all, she knew that times were different in the eighties. She was pretty sure she remembered someone complaining outside of a shop once that a pound would get her crisps, pop and sweets.

Before, and in the future, it would get her maybe one if she was careful of where she shopped.

The first thing she was buying once she saved up enough, however, were a pair of glasses for Harry, so he’d finally stop squinting at things, even if it did make him look even more adorable. Maybe some rectangular ones would look nice on him, the ones with the bigger frames like what she had worn Before. She wasn’t going to be missing _those, _that was sure.

Poor little brother with mother’s eyes, but father’s eyesight.

With a sigh that didn’t suit coming from a three and a bit’s mouth, Evelyn grabbed Harry’s hand and set off to finish the chores the hag had left to them before leaving them behind in the house on their own. She was of the mindset now that one finishes all the work beforehand, then they didn’t have to worry over it later on. Especially since half the time Before she would forget the time and look up to find it was three in the morning, she had a class at eight, and she hadn’t finished the seven-page assignment.

No wonder her _Pottermore_ patronus had been an owl, she barely ever slept during the night.

… Did she need to sleep _now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I had a hard time picking what the Dursleys house looked like. I was using the Wikia description for the most part, but it’s pretty vague at parts and the films are no help. One moment the living room is off from the kitchen, another it has its own arch in the hallway. Ugh. If the twins were the same gender, they would be identical. As it is the only difference between them aside from that is Harry’s scar and Evelyn’s brighter eyes. 
> 
> Also, has anyone else noticed how hard is it to find a twin fiction where one isn’t the fake boy who lived and the other is left at the Dursleys? Finally, speaking of family trees, you all should see the monster I’ve made for this story over on family echo. I’ve done over five hundred members so far and that’s not even halfway done.


	3. Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One rule I have about my insert stories is that the insert never tells anyone about the life they had Before, nor tell anyone the foreknowledge they have. Evelyn isn’t going to be much different. She’s never going to tell anyone about her life Before, nor about her gamer abilities, and very few people will know she’s a seer. Her metamorphmagus and parseltongue abilities, however, I haven’t yet decided on.

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Three**  
**Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est  
** _knowledge itself is power_

* * *

**(Thursday the 13th of December, 1984. Labyrinth Library, Magnolia Crescent, Little Whinging, England.)**

**Beverly **Robin had been the head librarian at Labyrinth Library, named for its irregular passages, for almost twenty years but she had never met children quite like the Potter twins.

The little boy currently sat in the far corner of the children’s area, almost completely engulfed by the chair he was sat on, was oh so polite. He was well-spoken and full of smiles whenever he would come up to her desk to ask for help picking another book. From what she had gathered, having watched him for weeks, he wasn’t enrolled in Reception. But, from what she had seen from the books he would read, he was already ahead of her own granddaughter who was about the same age herself.

His older sister on the hand was… a little odder than most children she saw. It was now the fourth day in a row where she found the girl sat on the floor next to her brother, repeating the same series of motions over, and over, and over again for countless hours. The girl had picked a simple book that Beverly knew was far below her reading level and balanced it across her lap. She opened it, glanced at the title page, and then closed it. She then opened it again, glanced at the title page again, and then closed it once more. Again. And again. And again.

Her dedication had long since left the territory of childish stubbornness and barrelled into the realm of worrying obsession. However, the brother always had the same answer for Beverly whenever she would decide it was past time for an intervention. “It helps Evie increase her intelligence!” The girl would simply look over the top of the book and stare, green eyes unsettlingly bright, until Beverly had to return to her desk.

And if the young girl wasn’t sat next to her brother, intently focused on whatever book she had picked for that day, Beverly could find her wandering through the many rows of bookcases. One moment she would be in the Science section, another she could be found in near the Language books, and she had even once been found in the adult section.

When asked what she was doing or if she needed help, her reply was a simple, “I’m looking for the blue ones.”

Beverly had directed her towards many blue covered books, but the girl had simply stared at her before wandering off again. Yes, Evelyn Potter was a very odd child indeed. Beverly did so love it when they both trotted in through the doors at twelve o’clock sharp, however, as it allowed her to keep an eye on them. It wasn’t hard to see that the Potter twins were unwanted by their guardians. It hadn’t taken long for her to figure out why the girl would break from her routine whenever she saw someone come near them.

The Potter twins wore only spare, ratty clothes that never fit them and was held up by belts and other such things.

Harry flinched whenever someone yelled too loud, whenever someone moved in his general direction too fast.

And Evelyn would continuously stare at anyone who she didn’t know that would stand too close. At times the girl’s gaze was terrifying. They could have a weird, unfocused look to them, but the look would also be accompanied by a cold, steely gleam that looked very out of place on her round, childish face. She knew it too and wielded it like a weapon.

One of the few times Beverly had seen the young girl smile—when it wasn’t directed at her brother—was when another child had commented on the bright colour, calling them freaky and weird. Evelyn had smiled, or more like smirked, and replied: “I like how they can unnerve a person.”

The Potter twins were as different as night and day, but anyone could see how much they loved each other.

**. . .**

Every morning, after their many, many chores had been finished to the hag’s high standards, Harry and Evelyn would begin the long walk from Privet Drive to Magnolia Road. They would pass through Wisteria Walk, where there was always a golden exclamation mark or two that would bring Evelyn to a stop for a small while. Magnolia Crescent, however, was where the twins spent the most time lingering about before then continuing with their walk—Harry was always more than happy to help people.

Quite the number of adults had come to know the young twins that would stop and help them with whatever task, no matter how big or small.

It was always around about ten o’clock that the twins would leave Privet Drive. By quarter to twelve, they were rounding a street corner on Magnolia Crescent, where the large Labyrinth Library was nestled as twelve o’clock was when the doors would first open for the day to the public.

It had taken quite a while for Evelyn to find the library, as her **Map **only ever showed her places that she has already discovered. The rest was blank and greyed out. However, each night, after she had read her brother to sleep in their shared bed, the young witch would sneak out of the house and wander further and further away from 4 Privet Drive.

She had quickly discovered that she didn’t require sleep like Before, but she still went for about a night a week.

If she was awake for too long, she felt herself becoming a little stir-crazy. Sleep was good for her, even if she no longer needed it.

Still, the late-night wandering had been worth it, as she had discovered a lot of new places for her to explore, along with a place that she could take Harry so that he wasn’t stuck with the Dursleys all the time. Petunia didn’t care where they went, she just wanted them out of the house as soon as the chores had been done. Something about the less time they spent in her house the less freakiness they would leave behind. It was fine with Evelyn anyway, the sooner she could figure out how to get Harry and herself away from them the better.

So, off to the library, the twins would go, where Harry could read to his heart’s content and learn all the things he was meant to be at the Reception he wasn’t allowed to attend.

Each day that Evelyn saw her little brother engulfed by the chair he would pick in the furthest corner, the more she was reminded of Matilda.

Harry had such a childlike sense of curious wonder for the world and she was always more than happy to fan the flames of his burning desire to learn. Thus, the library. The twins had been going daily for the last seven months and she was fairly certain that it had resulted in Harry growing past the Reception-level of schoolwork by a few years. After a few days, she had even gotten a shared library card for them, so that Harry would pick out books that he could then take home and read.

They never told Petunia, nor showed them to her.

The books were kept safe within the confines of her **Inventory, **with Harry thinking that they had been placed in the little satchel she had gotten from a quest. One day she was going to enchant it with an undetectable extension charm so that it would become her pretend inventory. It had become a fairly easy process for her to now open her **Inventory **inside of it but one day someone more observant than her little brother was sure to ask her questions about the number of things she supposedly kept in it.

The library was the twin's safe place.

It helped that the librarian, Mrs Robin, was someone who adored the twins. Or, rather, adored Harry and was confused towards Evelyn. It probably didn’t help that Evelyn would just stare at her if she interrupted her, or if the librarian took something she had said a different way than what Evelyn herself had intended it as. She didn’t get along much with others.

Evelyn’s mannerisms and habits probably didn’t help her case, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

The only person she cared for was her brother, and she needed to figure out how she could get him away from Privet Drive as soon as possible, without breaking the protection it gave him. It was far too easy to imagine metamorphing into an older version of herself and then just running away with him.

But, for now, Evelyn made do with improving her stats and building her arsenal of skills.

Her **Intelligence **was easy enough to increase, considering that by simply reading the title page of a book she gained a fourth of a point towards it. _That _mechanic was abused heavily, along with her **[Evans Origins**]. If she found any books that had a blue glow to them, she would take advance of her level 43 **[Sneak] **and then pocket them into her **Inventory. **Books with a blue glow meant that they were either skill books or stat increasing books. Either way, that meant they dissolved into light particles when read—well, more like flakes really.

By the time Reception had then been let out at half three, the twins had already made their way back towards Privet Drive. The hag was very punctual about when she wanted things done and the second half of their chores started the moment she got back with Dudley and if they weren’t back by then… well, she definitely knew how to make their lives unpleasant. So, Evelyn would drag a reluctant Harry from the library at two o’clock on the dot and they would begin their walk back to the house.

It didn’t take them an hour and a half to walk from the library, but she liked to give them enough time to stop and complete any new short quests that had popped up whilst she had been building her skills and stats in the library. Harry was always more than happy to help others with whatever troubles they were having. He thought that whenever Evelyn would say someone needed help that she had seen it in a vision and that she had a helpful nature as he did. She had never seen the point in correcting him that she was, in fact, a game completist.

And she was rewarded for helping people. It wasn’t as though she was doing it for free.

There usually weren’t too many quests on the way back, but she could always count on the fact that Mrs Figg would have the same miscellaneous quest for her to repeat. She had done it so many times at this point in time that she could probably complete it blindfolded. Harry disliked it the most, as the squib’s house apparently smelt like cabbage, so Evelyn usually ended buying him sweets at the corner shop. But she herself was more than happy to repeat them as they gave her **[Creature Care] **experience and wizarding money. Usually sickles.

She had a grand total of _two _galleons now from just repeating Mrs Figg’s Lv.: 4-Quest **[A Kneazle in Need].**

The conversion of galleons into pounds she hadn’t yet figured out, and she was dreading it honestly. It could either be £5 like Rowling had once said in an interview, or vary between £50 and £200 as the first three books had suggested…

It was a mess.

Still, she currently had over £140 sat comfortably in her **Inventory **so she would have some money when she decided to dip her toes into the wizarding world without letting anyone know she was Evelyn Potter. What better way to make use of her metamorphmagus ability than undercover intelligence gathering before she had even hit eleven?

No-one was going to stop her from discovering every little nook and cranny in the world hidden behind the Leaky Cauldron.

_(There was a small object in her hand, she looked determined, bright green eyes aglow—words fall from her lips, the snake around her neck hisses in reply, tongue flickering out as she tasted the surrounding colours—the dark musk of the room surrounds them, they will not fail…)_

“Evie?”

She blinked, before turning to look towards her brother. His face was twisted with concern, his eyes filled with worry and she smiled. Harry had gotten used to the glassy and unfocused look in her eyes whenever she had a vision, but the concern never faded.

Still, despite the concern she had filled her brother with, it had also allowed her to tell Harry about the world they came from. She used the excuse of being a seer to tell him tales about the wizarding world, and while curious, what Harry usually asked her for was tales about their parents. Every single night without fail since she had told him about being a seer, Evelyn would tell him a story as they laid in their shared bed about their parents and their family history.

“I’m okay, Harry. It was nothing.” She smiled again and could see he didn’t believe her.

Her little brother never seemed much affected by her Lv.: 35 **[Bluff]. **She often wondered if it was a twin thing as everyone else she used it on was, with varying levels of success.

“Shall we do the garden first?”

He stared at her in silence, seemingly judging her with his big emerald eyes that no longer squinted at things due to the big-framed glasses he wore. After a moment, he seemed to have decided on something, as he nodded with a wrinkle of his little nose. “The white flowers smell better than Dudley.”

Evelyn snorted, shaking her head in amusement. Whilst the valerians that Petunia had planted in the flower beds some weeks ago were pretty, they did also smell quite a bit and Harry hated them. Maybe that’s why the hag brought them because she herself didn’t seem to notice the smell… or was pretending not to. The flowers apparently smelt like Dudley to her brother and she would have to agree with him, as they did have a smell of sweaty, old gym socks to them.

But she would take preening and watering them over having to smell Dudley for any longer. She didn’t have the faintest idea what her plumb of a cousin did all day at Reception, but he always came back smelling to the high heavens. It was so bad that the twins’ eyes always watered whenever they were around him for too long.

She thought it said a lot about Dudley’s hygiene when Harry would prefer to tend to the valerians.

_“Evie! Come here!” _

At the sound of Harry’s whispered yell, Evelyn turned away from the flowerbed she had been tending to. Her little brother was crouched down in front of one of the hedge bushes that enclosed the back garden and he seemed to be looking at something hidden within them. Last week he had found a frog and had been extremely worried that Dudley would find it.

He had ended up carefully depositing it into the pond in number three’s garden, wherein all likely hood, was where it had come from in the first place.

Brushing off the dirt on her hands—no gloves for the twins in the garden, the hag didn’t want to spend the money—she stood and began to make her way over. Then she too crouched down near the bush and tilted to the side so that she could see underneath the bush that was perfectly trimmed. She would know, the hag had her trimming them for three hours before she had been satisfied. And not with a pair of hedge clippers or anything of that nature, but with a pair of _safety scissors. _

The things she did for quest completion…

It took a moment for Evelyn to find what her brother was pointing towards, and when she did, she blinked in surprise.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she muttered, more to herself than anything else.

What her brother had been so excited to show her was coiled up into a small ball, barely visible in the shadows of the bushes. And by small, she meant that the little creature coiled into a ball could have easily fit on a penny. For a moment, Evelyn found herself entranced by the beautiful keeled scales that ran down the entire length of its body. Then her **[Creature Care] **finally kicked itself into gear and she realised what kind of snakes had keeled scales and a triangular head like the one before her and her little brother.

“Don’t touch it, Harry.”

Harry frowned. “Why? It’s pretty!”

“It’s also venomous, so it can kill you.”

“Oh.” A pause. “So, I can’t pet it?”

Evelyn glared at him from out the corner of her eye, and he pouted like the four-year-old he was as he sat back on his knees and folded his arms across his chest. Still, he didn’t move closer to the snake or attempt to touch it as Evelyn **observe**d it in an attempt to find out why it was there. One didn’t typically find a _viper_ in an English garden.

It didn’t pose much of a threat currently since it was apparently only two months old, which meant that its venom glands were small and their fangs short, and half-starved. Still, she wasn’t taking any chances with the safety of her brother, who was mostly hidden behind her so that if the snake did decide to strike, it would strike her and not him.

**] – Quest Alert – [**

**(Lv.: 5) My Kingdom for a Snake!  
**A poor little snakelet has wondered into the Frying Pan wielder’s garden, half-starved and close to death  
But what better way to find out what a Parselmouth can do than with your very own snake?

**Objectives:**  
Nurse the snakelet back to health  
Don’t let the Dursleys find it

**Rewards: **  
Pet  
100 EXP

**Failure:**  
Dead Snake Body  
1 week in the cupboard under the stairs

**] - - - [ **

Evelyn sighed.

Of course.

She looked to where the snakelet was coiled up and found herself already wavering. It really was such a beautiful creature, with the colour of its keeled scales shifting between different shades of blue and green. There were even moments of black beneath the scales, with its underbelly lightening further into a white.

Still, quest or not, beautiful creature or not, Evelyn was uncomfortable with keeping a venomous snake anywhere near her brother. Never mind the fact that she had always wanted one Before, and had even made plans to buy one after the term had broken up. She had always had a strong love for animals. But still… Harry’s safety was the most important thing to her.

** _“Hungry… cold…”_ **

Harry gasped behind her. “Evie, it’s cold! We have to save it!”

Curse her squishy heart and the fact that the twins shared a Parselmouth trait—even if Harry’s was the result of the filth in his head.

Carefully Evelyn scooped the snake into her hand, which caused it to turn a single, beautifully dark purple eye her way. However, it made no further movements that would suggest that it was about to strike so she hid it under the cup of her other hand as she and Harry then quickly, quietly, and carefully moved back through the house. Dudley was sat in front of the telly with a pot of ice cream in his lap while Petunia was sat in one of the armchairs, sorting through a huge basket of washing that seemingly contained only the pudgy boy’s clothes.

Vernon wasn’t due home for another two hours.

The twins made it to their shared bedroom in record time, managing to avoid both Petunia and the trick seventh stair that creaked at the slightest of pressure. In the last few months, the room itself hadn’t changed much, aside from the massive clean-up Evelyn had forced herself to go through that had taken days to complete. One can only stand on Legos so many times before they feel like committing murder upon tiny blocks of plastic.

For the most part, the broken toys had been shoved into her **Inventory **as they seemed like they would be great practice for _Reparo_ when she finally got her hands on the skill. What little had been left out were things that Dudley had either never wanted to play with, so they were mostly intact or things that were only slightly broken. Those went into a plastic container within their closet as it hadn’t fit under their bed. Petunia had either not noticed that half the toys were missing, or she simply didn’t care.

Either way, she never mentioned it and the bedroom had become seemingly bigger without all the garbage that had been stuffed into it.

“Harry, can you get the mustard jumper?”

“The one you said looked like puke?”

“Yes, that one. It’s in the cupboard.”

Whilst Before Evelyn would have never been able to recall where she had put the jumper, in this world, with each new point into **Intelligence **her memory bank grew. She remembered more and more, with her being able to recall some memories down to the smallest detail. Thus, why she was gunning for the **[Eidetic Memory]** bonus she received at 100** Intelligence.**

And with her** Intelligence **currently sat at 58, she was well on her way to gaining the extremely useful bonus that made it so she could recall everything with perfect clarity. She was aiming to get it before she had to go to Primary the following year.

“Here Evie.”

Evelyn blinked at the ugly mustard monstrosity that had been thrust into her face. “Thank you, Harry. Can you make it into a nest for me?”

“A nest?”

“Like the bird one you showed me in the park, remember? The empty one that had fallen from a tree?”

“Oh, yeah!” Harry grinned after a moment. “Is the snake going to sleep in it?”

“Yes, it will keep her warm,” she replied as she watched Harry set about his task with great enthusiasm and care. After a few moments, a nest of ugly, orange cloth was sat in the middle of the twins’ desk. It wasn’t much to look at, but for now, it was all they had. The lamp they had on their desk should also help with the much-needed heat slightly.

Carefully Evelyn deposited the snakelet into the makeshift nest. She then took a step back so that she could look around the room for a better place for it. It had to be somewhere where the lamp could reach, but it also had to be somewhere where the snake couldn’t be easily found if Petunia or anyone else came snooping in the twins’ room.

“Evie, what about this?”

Harry was holding up a small, plastic container that had been thrown into the twins’ room some weeks ago after Dudley had snapped off a side of it when he had thrown it at the wall during one of his infamous temper tantrums. She was pretty sure it had been about taking a bath…

Soon enough the container found itself underneath the twins’ bed, sandwiched up against the bedside table so that it wasn’t visible from the side. There was a gap between the bedside table and the bed that would just about allow the lamp to shine down into the nest without then seeming suspicious to the Dursleys. With the nest then moved into it, it was finished.

For now, at least. It needed more in it, but they were limited in what they had.

Thus, the twins found themselves the caretakers of a _venomous magical _snake.

Or, rather, that was how _Evelyn _found herself looking after the snake. Harry liked to look at it and boop it on the top of the head occasionally when it hissed at him. Evelyn was the one that ended up feeding it with what she could find in the gardens and made sure it was warm enough by adding little ripped strips of cloth to its nest.

The snakelet was named Cassiopeia after a week, a name Evelyn had chosen for just how beautiful she was.

… _‘What in Merlin’s hairy ball sack is Parselmagic?!’_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Of course, Evelyn has a pet snake, pfft. Cassiopeia was originally just a normal bush viper but then I re-stumbled across the _monster blog of monsters_ and I found the rippling bristlescale which is a magical bush viper in looks. I’ve tweaked a few things, but it’s mostly the same and through game logic, she turned up at the Dursleys garden. Bush vipers have always been my favourite type of snakes. They are just so beautiful and come in so many different colours, thus the name Cassiopeia, for the vain queen who boasted about her unrivalled beauty.
> 
> I hope that beginning was okay and didn’t seem too out of place! It’s very different to how I usually start characters, but I wanted to show a little of how the twins seem to other people. I’ve also just realised that 1984 is the year that the mobile game starts… Mhm…


	4. Vir Fugiens Et Denuo Pugnabit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the cliched zombie dungeon! How can I write a Gamer story without having a zombie dungeon? If anyone wants to share some ideas, they have about what other dungeons could be found in the wizarding world, please let me know! I’d love to hear your ideas!

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Four**   
**Vir Fugiens Et Denuo Pugnabit**   
_he who fights and runs away may live to fight another day_

* * *

**(Saturday the 23rd of June, 1985. The Necromancer’s Den, Wisteria Walk, Little Whinging, England.)**

**Evelyn **was, for lack of a better term, three and a half feet of gleeful excitement. Not the usual response from someone that had found themselves in a situation such as the one she had found herself in, but Evelyn wasn’t exactly normal anyway and hadn’t been for some time now.

Her day had started out much the same as every other day since she had woken up in Rowling’s world. She had woken hours before anyone else, exactly three hours after she had gone to sleep at midnight, and had spent a few hours running through the streets and dealing with the few pests that had popped up from the woodwork. A morning jog was always the way to start a day properly. Then she had sneaked back into the house, been immediately greeted by yet another **[Breakfast at the Dursleys] **quest, which had been quickly followed by another five chore quests, and then once all that had been finished, she had been ordered down the corner shop on Wisteria Walk for milk and eggs.

It was Dudderkin’s big day, his fifth birthday, and that meant that his cake needed to be bigger and better than last years. Thus, the need for more milk and eggs as the amount that was in the kitchen wasn’t _nearly _enough to make a cake bigger enough. Last year Evelyn had secretly made one for Harry through the Lv.: 3-Quest **[Harry’s Big Day!]**.

So, alone she went, as Harry had been sent off to clean the windows, wash the car and mow the lawn so everything was pristine for Dudley’s party.

But that wasn’t why Evelyn was gleefully excited. _That _was due to the fact that as soon as she had come out of the shop with said milk and eggs and rounded the corner intent on walking down the alley, the alley had immediately turned dark and foggy like a _Silent Hill _rip-off. And much like the horror game, which she had never managed to finish, the alley was doing everything it could to kill her as it had been turned into a suburban cul-de-sac _dungeon _filled with _undead _creatures that were determined on making her join their ranks.

With a sickening crunch, she slammed her aluminium bat into the skull of a Lv.: 4 **Zombie **that had tried sneaking up behind her. Its skull concaved almost effortlessly, dropping its health bar down to zero from a combined effort of 27 **Strength **and Lv.: 3 of **[Blunt Weapon Mastery] **which had, in turn, gained her the skill **[Power Strike]**.

She was so glad that she had taken the time to look through all her settings, which had allowed her to toggle her commands from verbal to mental.

**[You’ve gained 35 EXP]  
****[You’ve looted **Piece of Cloth**]**

Evelyn couldn’t help but pull a face at the measly loot. None of the zombies had given her anything good, just the same three pieces of repeated loot. **Pieces of Cloth, Teeth of the Dead **and then the occasional **Human Rib. **What crafting item used the latter two, she had no idea, but into the crafting material category, they had all disappeared.

She turned just in time to see another zombie, this one wearing a business suit, come limping towards her. She ran forward, making use of the associated skill to give herself a boost of speed to jump into the air and slam the bat down, which resulted in a disgusting squelching sound. Classic zombie logic. Destroy the brain, kill the undead.

**[You’ve gained 35 EXP]**

The young witch hummed in interest as she picked up a small glass bottle filled with a red liquid. A quick **observe **showed it to be a basic **Healing Potion** which would heal her for a total of twenty health points. Nothing too fancy, especially since most of her food usually healed her for the same amount, but it could be useful one day.

** _“Smells like strawberries.”_ **

**_“That’s because it apparently tastes like them,”_** she replied to the snake loosely coiled around her neck.

Cassiopeia hissed, her tongue flicking out as Evelyn placed the **Healing Potion **into her **Inventory—**where it was automatically sorted into the category for potions. There was no limit to how much she could place into her **Inventory **and it would have looked like a warzone if she hadn’t taken the time to sort through it and create categories for the items she picked up. She had spent the better part of an hour sorting everything out, tagging items with what categories she wanted them in. Thankfully, they were then automatically sorted accordingly.

In the end, she had made a total of twenty-six different categories… with her constantly debating if she needed more or not.

Continuing through the cul-de-sac at a leisurely pace, Evelyn quietly hummed the tune of a song that wouldn’t be out for another sixteen years to herself. A big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff was a fairly accurate way for to her explain her life, what with the time displacement and such. There wasn’t much she missed from her life Before. She did, however, miss the music and books that wouldn’t be out for decades yet. Especially the shows that she would binge while working late on her assignments. 

Somehow the humming had managed to level her **[Singing] **to two, despite the fact that she wasn’t actually singing. Sometimes the way the game mechanics worked made no sense at all.

** _“That one smells like dark magic.”_ **

She paused and turned to look towards where her familiar was looking—one day Hedwig would become her brother’s and Evelyn couldn’t wait to meet the owl. Crawling across one of the streets in front of her with its limbs moving in snapping, jerky motions that reminded her far too much of possessed people in films was a gaunt, skeletal being that looked somewhat similar to the zombies but also vastly different. Sort of like the wendigos from that game she remembered playing with the totems and butterflies… Dawn something or other.

Really, it was just fortunate that she had just recently managed to evolve **[Accidental Magic] **into **[Wandless Magic] **or she would have been screwed two ways to Sunday. The most efficient way of dealing with an inferius was with fire and other than her magic, she had no way of making it. Maybe she should start carrying around a backup lighter in her **Inventory… **it was good to have different options available to her in case one failed one way or another.

** _“Keep an eye on the inferius, Cassiopeia.”_ **

_‘I _really_ need a ranged skill.’_

_‘Maybe I can…’_

Evelyn thumped the end of her bat down against the cold, hard concrete and used it for support as she closed her eyes and outstretched an arm. She inhaled and exhaled slowly as she reached for that thrum of power within her, that electrical current that coursed throughout every single part of her, the one that had taken hours of meditation to find in the first place.

When she felt a warm presence, she opened her eyes just in time to see the Lv.: 8 **Inferius** fly backwards, slamming into a nearby wall, as a jet of orange-red fire hit it.

**-20MP  
MP: 271 / 291**

**[Due to the manipulation of magic, a new skill has been created and added to your list]**

**[Incendio] [Lv.: 1] **[PP to next Lv.: 95]  
**[Active]**

A simple, but strong fire-making spell that can deal **15-20 **damage at the cost of **20MP**

**] - - - [**

The inferius screeched in anger as it stood back up, but Evelyn couldn’t help the smile that curled her lips. She was _finally _doing actual magic that wasn’t shrinking Dudley’s clothes or making Petunia’s hair change colour without the hag noticing as she tried to advance her **[Accidental Magic] **into the more powerful **[Wandless Magic]. **Despite Evelyn’s extreme interest in it; it had still taken her over a full year to reach the level that had finally unlocked the advancement—level hundred and _fifty. _

The noise attracted the nearby zombies towards her location, but thankfully, they were still some distance away. Should be enough time for her to deal with the inferius, anyhow, even if it did have a health bar of 800 that had only been knocked down to 780 with the one fire spell in her arsenal.

She couldn’t wait until she could get her hands on something more powerful like _Fiendfyre_. That black or blue fire ring Grindelwald had made was also something that she definitely wanted. Evelyn was far more interested in the darker spells than most of the lighter ones she really knew but didn’t have access to quite yet.

The inferius gave a hair-raising screech, which caused the nearby zombies to follow suit, and it rushed towards her. Evelyn fired jet after jet of **[Incendio] **at it, which slowly chipped away at its health but did nothing to slow it down or prevent it from reaching her. With another hair-raising screech, the inferius swiped its clawed hand in Evelyn’s direction.

**Critical Hit! -35HP  
HP: 865 / 900**

Evelyn cursed as the inferius cut across her side and she kicked out, slamming her foot into its head to knock it back. Cassiopeia hissed in anger and before Evelyn could react, her familiar had shot forward, striking the inferius on its neck. It screeched as she bit down, and Evelyn caught another claw to the side as she jumped forward to prevent her familiar from being hit as she currently only had fifty health points. Cassiopeia then quickly slithered back up, so that she was once again coiled around the young witch’s neck.

She could only watch in fascination as the inferi then began to boil from the inside out.

Apparently, her familiar’s blood-boiling venom was also effective against inferius, despite them having no blood to speak of.

Who knew? 

**[You’ve gained 50 EXP]**

** _“That’s different.”_ **

Evelyn carefully examined the small purple shard she had picked up off the ground. The pain from the inferius’ claws had faded almost instantaneously, and her health was recovering but she could probably do with some food as the hoard of zombie the fight had gathered were nearby. She munched on some **Toast—**which healed her for ten per slice—as she **observe**d the **Soul Shard **in her hand. Apparently, it healed abnormal conditions and diseases, while also recovering health and magic for fifty each.

She probably wouldn’t use them then, unless she got an abnormal condition or disease… or came across someone else who had one. No point in wasting them when Evelyn had a copious amount of **Toast** in her **Inventory **due to cheesing her **[Breakfast at the Dursleys] **quests. If she failed at cooking a piece of food, say like burning a sausage, it then didn’t count towards the total needed for said quest and another uncooked one would spawn—no-one else would notice it either.

The slightly burnt one was then sent into her **Inventory **and on she continued. Thus, why she had so much food on her that she could probably feed an entire county for a year.

After placing the **Soul Shard **into her **Inventory, **Evelyn tapped the bat against her leg. _‘Stats.’_

**] – Status – [**

Name: Evelyn Rose Potter [Lv.: 8] [Exp to next Lv.: 2174]

Age: 4

Class: The Gamer

Title: Orphan

HP: 900 / 900 (0.10/s)

MP: 291 / 291 (0.07/s)

STR: 27 / VIT: 30

DEX: 29 / AGI: 34

INT: 95 / WIS: 72

CHA: 16 / LUK: 1

Stat Points: 40

Currency: £470 / ʛ6

** Defining Traits **

**[ - Potter Origins - ] **[ + ]

**[ - Evans Origins - ] **[ + ]

**[ - Gamer’s Body - ] **[ + ]

**[ - Gamer’s Mind - ] **[ + ]

**] - - - [**

_‘So close to the intelligence bonus.’_

_‘Also need to find something that increases luck...’_

For only having played the game for a little over a year, Evelyn had shot up from her original starting point, which really was a testament to how much she had been doing these last few months. However, it was getting harder and harder to increase her stats now and she knew that she would have to start dipping into her stat points sooner or later. She also estimated that all of her stats would either be in or around the hundred mark by the time that she rolled up to Hogwarts and she wondered what greatness the castle had to offer her.

There was also the side thought of if she had done _too _much and she was now considered overpowered for her level, but she ignored it. No-one was parking the breaks on her gaming experience. Besides, there was probably a bunch of stuff to do that would take into account her stats. At least, she hoped that the rest of the world levelled alongside her.

One hitting bosses wasn’t fun when it happened all the time.

She had played on god mode enough times to know that.

Evelyn swung her bat down in an arch, slamming it into the back of the zombie’s head which resulted in it being a sneak attack. Double damage. Then, just as the other zombie turned towards her, she hit the bat across the side of its face before then finishing it off with another hit to its slightly exposed chest.

**[You’ve gained 175 EXP]  
[You’ve looted **Tooth of the Dead**]  
[You’ve looted **Tooth of the Dead**]  
****. . .**

Another three zombies appeared around the corner and Evelyn twirled her bat around in her grasp like a baton. Dudley always had the best presents. Before it would have greatly annoyed her how unappreciative her cousin was, but not now when she and her twin could reap the benefits of his spoiled behaviour. Evelyn had even used magic ‘accidentally’ to make some toys break every now and again so that he would throw them away, toys that she had seen Harry look at and knew that he wanted.

He deserved more than what he got and definitely deserved more than what Dudley got.

She rushed forward, ducking around one zombie that stretched out towards her as she slammed the bat into another. One, two, three and down they dropped before dissolving into nothingness as though they had never existed in the first place. The zombies were so much easier to deal with than the inferius had. Guess that was just what being magic did.

**[You’ve gained 210 EXP]  
[You’ve looted **Piece of Cloth**]  
[You’ve looted **Human Rib**]  
****. . .**

A burst of fire exploded at where a zombie had been standing and it was blasted back and Evelyn quickly swooped in with the killing shot, a headshot with her bat. It was definitely going to be her new strategy for dealing with them. Knock them down with **[Incendio] **and then come in with the kill with her aluminium bat.

**[You’ve gained 2555 EXP]  
[You’ve looted **Soul Shard**]  
[You’ve looted **Piece of Cloth**]  
****. . .**

**[Level has increased by 1]**

**_“Heal together now?”_** Cassiopeia hissed after Evelyn had failed to prevent a zombie from taking a chunk out of her arm. She had been going through the dungeon on sort of autopilot after the first hour, so she didn’t really remember much of the second hour before bitey had appeared. Maybe she should work on obtaining _Protego…_

** _“Might as well.”_ **

Cassiopeia uncurled herself from the young witch’s neck and slithered down so that her bottom scales touched the wound on Evelyn’s arm. Her tongue then flickered across it as she lowered her head, and the wound began to briefly glow as Evelyn told it to heal and close. The wound then began to shrink until there was nothing left but unblemished skin.

**[Parselmagic has increased by 1]**

**[Parselmagic] [Lv.: 5] **[PP to next Lv.: 4250]  
**[Active]**

Ancient and rare magic only accessible to Parselmouths that allows them to channel their magic through a snake familiar. It can also be used for powerful healing and manipulating magic to the benefit of others. Not much is known at all about the limitations of Parselmagic and what a Parselmouth can accomplish with it

**] - - - [**

Cassiopeia moved back up across her. The young witch probably looked quite the sight, with a two-foot-long snake draped across her. The viper had definitely grown quite a bit since Harry had originally found her in the garden and it seemed as though she was nowhere near done. Evelyn theorized it was something to do with her familiar being a magical variant of snake. There was a lot she didn’t know for sure.

The young witch would definitely need to do some experiments in the future…

**[Sense Danger triggered!]**

The hairs on the back of Evelyn’s neck stood up suddenly and without a moment of thought, she ducked and rolled to the side, absentmindedly noticing the ray of light that hit the wall behind where her head was supposed to be. The wall which now sported a freshly made hole the size of a basketball.

** _“Too close…”_ **

Evelyn looked over her shoulder. Stood at a fork in the road of the cul-de-sac was a tall, robed figure. The only part of it that was visible was the singular hand holding a wand that seemed to be glowing with black energy. The hand was greyish and rotten, much like what she had seen of the other zombies.

Lv.: 32** Zombie Wizard.**

Apparently the big bad hadn’t appreciated her slaughtering its undead army.

She fired **[Incendio] **after **[Incendio] **at it until her magic supply was completely drained. Then she booked it down the street, slamming the few remaining zombies out of her way with her bat. Mobs didn’t have health regeneration so she could take cheap shots at the boss all day until it was dead. Time didn’t move at all when inside of a dungeon. Poor way of playing the game, but Evelyn still hadn’t tested the theory of if she could actually die or not. Hadn’t wanted to either, just in case she was greeted with a **‘Game Over!’ **screen.

It would have been like those stealth missions where you could run away until the mobs had lost sight of you and then come back again as though nothing had happened. Well, except the zombie wizard didn’t seem to operate on the same mechanics as those missions, as it was _following _her relentlessly as she weaved through the winding cul-de-sac streets.

It now took a total of an hour and twelve minutes for her magic supply to completely refill. Using **[Meditation] **helped halve that again, but Evelyn didn’t have the opportunity to do so with the robed figure chasing after her like a bat out of hell, firing magic balls at her that she could only just about dodge because of **[Sense Danger].**

She had managed to knock 383 health points off the boss before her magic supply had depleted, but it still had a staggering 14,817 left. **[Incendio] **wasn’t nearly enough for her to deal with it in a timely fashion without being blasted to oblivion. It wasn’t as though she could escape either, so it was either fight or die. She blamed the hag for making her go out to get milk and eggs and Dudley for being such a spoilt brat that he _needed _a big cake. Was it bad that she sometimes dreamt of murdering all the Dursleys in their sleep?

**-100HP  
HP: 850 / 950**

Evelyn could barely contain the scream that ripped from her throat as something cut through the flesh of her arm. The spell should have completely loped it off at the elbow but due to **[Gamer’s Body] **it remained attached by some unseen force, before then knitting back together leaving only a line of blood behind as evidence. Still hurt as though she had indeed lost her arm and her health had suffered a hit, but her arm was still connected to her body.

She really needed to find the magical equivalent of **[Physical Endurance] **before properly entering into the magical world as spells were most definitely going to be flying her way on a regular basis. She had only seen a small handful of magical people hit someone and Lumpy Voodersnitch wasn’t one of them.

Narrowly dodging another spell—or curse, she wasn’t exactly looking—Evelyn crammed an **Apple Cobbler **into her mouth. As a result, her magic quickly began to climb back up for a total of 300 points—which went over her total capacity but thankfully not by much. **[Cooking] **was one of her most useful skills. She couldn’t wait until she could make potions.

If only she could find some way of distracting the boss somehow…

It was as though a light bulb had popped up above her head in that exact moment. Maybe she could _create _a distraction. She already had a good handle on her magic, had moved past the times of uncontrollable, unpredictable magic. So, in theory, she could create a spell of sorts that could help her. Wouldn’t know until she tried it at least.

Evelyn ran through the cul-de-sac for a few more minutes as she dodged the spells that were thrown her way, only coming to a stop when the boss had _finally _stopped itself and then began to retreat towards where it had originally appeared. She swallowed, knocking the back of her head against the brick wall she was leaning up against with a thump. The boundary limits applied to the boss were far bigger than what she was usually used to, but at least the boss _had _one, otherwise, she would have been running around for hours.

It was just a good thing that she had been levelling **[Running] **for months now. If it wasn’t for all the morning runs the boss would have no doubt caught up to her within seconds. The _Run Boy Run _song usually played in the back of her mind when she went running as well. She was sort of disappointed that there wasn’t an accompanying soundtrack that played in the background as she went about her days.

She would have to figure out a way of getting music into Hogwarts.

**_“Less thinking, more planning,” _**Cassiopeia complained, and Evelyn blinked, before then flickering her attention down to her familiar.

She didn’t know how familiars worked exactly, but the snake seemed to understand her unlike anyone else. Even Harry. It did explain his relationship with Hedwig, however. But the snake was right, Evelyn had let her mind wander again instead of focusing at the issue at hand. She needed to figure out a spell that created a distraction.

Closing her eyes, the young witch thought back over all the other spells and similar things that she could recall from games and such that caused her desired effort. Illusion spells that created an image of her could work, but she wanted something that seemed like it _was _her. She didn’t want to make a spell that only worked against people that didn’t look closely. She wanted something that even someone like Dumbledore would be tricked by.

A grin spread across her lips. _‘Bingo.’_

A doppelgänger spell.

Something that made an _exact _copy of herself, not just as a simple illusion. Yes, a spell that like could work nicely and allow for so many different possibilities if she could get it right. It would have to make it so that the copy could do what she could do, skills and all. But then again, she could also have to have some way of knowing what the clone had done…

Evelyn nodded; her mind made up about what she wanted to happen. Once again, she reached for her core and felt the electrical current that coursed throughout her. She pictured exactly what she wanted in her mind, making sure to be clear and precise to ensure there were no mistakes.

**[Due to the manipulation of magic, a new skill has been created and added to your list]**

**[Umbra Geminus] [Lv.: 1] **[PP to next Lv.: 250]  
**[Active]**

A unique spell that creates a shadow clone, a doppelgänger of the caster. Capable of independent action and with their own MP pool, which is made up of half of the casters, they are capable of everything the caster is while also able to learn new things

**] - - - [**

Evelyn stared at the copy that stood before her. The spell name could probably do with some work, but it was the best she could think of one such short notice. Her own magic had been halved down to 145.5, and she hoped that by levelling the skill she could lower the loss of magic on her part. Otherwise, however, the spell had been a success.

“Time to kill the boss.”

Her clone grinned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is Evelyn growing too much? Four, almost five, years old and already she’s beating up zombies and inferius and a Lv.: 32 boss… But then again it took Han like two years to get superpowered so. You’ll also find items, spells, and food from other games, as long as it makes logical sense that Evelyn can actually make them here. Aside from dungeon ideas, if you also have any ideas towards items and food, drinks, that sort of thing please let me know as well! 
> 
> Can anyone guess what the doppelgänger spell is inspired by? Also, I saw a Tumblr post where everyone was doing the Benedict Cumberbatch thing for Voldemort and I just… I had too. They are too good. Please send me some you think Evelyn should call him!


	5. Tempus Fugit, Amor Manet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon diversion, ay ho! We're finally at the point in the story where the twins are moving on to bigger and better things.

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Five**  
Tempus Fugit, Amor Manet  
_time flees, love stays_

* * *

**(Wednesday the 31st of July, 1985. The Kitchen, 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, England.)**

**Evelyn **was peeling potatoes rather mechanically while she tried to order her thoughts, which wasn’t working out very well for her as her thoughts kept waddling off in random directions. She kept just enough of her awareness on her aunt to prevent the frazzled woman from tripping over her, but that was about it. From the look of things, Petunia was making obscene amounts of all of Vernon’s dinnertime favourites, most likely in yet another attempt to prove just how committed she was to the _Dursley _portion of her family.

The young witch presumed it was due to the bright red lipstick stain the walrus had had on the inside of his collar when he had come home the other day.

So, the scent of beef wellington, a full roast, various side dishes, and more than one pie clogged the air of the kitchen. Evelyn wiggled her nose as she reached for yet another rinsed potato, absently wondering if the hag would accept the suggestion of burying the skins under the flowerbeds. They would make fairly decent fertilizer.

As per usual in the Dursley household, it didn’t seem as though it was the twins’ fifth birthday. The entire street had known about Dudley’s, but that was to be expected when Petunia Dursley ran her mouth. The twins' birthday either didn’t exist or they would be given presents that were in the form of old socks and other such things. Before she had often found herself needing new socks, as she would always lose one out of a pair, but Vernon’s old crusty socks that her twin had been given would have been immediately thrown into the fire.

Her twin, who she could still hear muttering under his breath as he vacuumed the living room carpet.

At the sound of her aunt giving the ancient kitchen-aid mixer that sat in the corner of the kitchen a rather firm smack, Evelyn looked up from her place at the kitchen table. She immediately noticed the tears that had begun to gather in Petunia’s eyes. She watched for a moment, before then returning to her own task. The young witch was fairly apathetic when it came to her maternal family, she had zero sympathies for any of the misfortunes that might come their way.

At the beginning of the year, Petunia had discovered the scent of an unfamiliar perfume on Vernon’s coat. The week after the family had had a feast of food much like the one her aunt was currently cooking up. It seemed to be her coping mechanism, to cook and clean her problems away.

Evelyn dropped the peeled potato into the bowl in front of her, before then grabbing yet another unpeeled one.

She wondered what she could do to make the day special for Harry. This year she hadn’t been able to make him a cake, but she had managed to get a few dozen brightly decorated cupcakes from the bakery on Wisteria Walk, along with a few presents he had been eyeing in the toy store. They were only small things, five in total, but Harry had never wanted for much. Just the cake she had made him the previous year had been enough to make him smile. The fairy tale books she had also brought had only added to the smile.

Of course, Harry had also said, “Evie is all I need!” when she had asked what he had wanted and… damn that smile and those puppy eyes. Her little brother was definitely going to be a heartbreaker when he was older. Evelyn had always wondered why he hadn’t had _more _people after him romantically in the books.

Evelyn paused at the thought of romance. It seemed strange when she herself thought of dating in the future. Mentally she was older than others her physical age and that seemed like a whole can of worms she didn’t want to open. She sighed, shaking her head. _‘I’ll deal with it when, _if,_ it comes to that point.’_

Before she had liked being intimate with people, but still, when she had died, she had only ever been with two people.

Harry would probably enjoy it if they just stayed up in their bedroom and played board games and read all day. The few board games they had had been missing pieces here and there, but Evelyn had eventually managed to replace them with ones she had made herself using her **[Craft] **skill. She had also finally learnt **[Reparo] **so the broken toys were no more.

Her brother had been jealous of her ‘mastery’ over her magic at first, but he had been slowly learning how to control his own. He usually used it to levitate food from the top cupboards, so that he didn’t have to go and get a chair or stool to reach them. Petunia had noticed the missing food, of course, but hadn’t managed to pin it on Harry.

Mostly because he left the empty wrappers in Dudley’s room.

It was no wonder that the hat had originally wanted to place her brother in the house of snakes. He could be very sneaky when he wanted to be. He was still very much a Gryffindor through and through, however, and Evelyn didn’t really see that changing. She couldn’t say the same for herself. The house of lions wasn’t one she really saw herself going to. Before, when she had taken the quizzes, it had always rotated between Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Evelyn wasn’t _brave_, she just desired the end result enough not to care.

Like when she had fought the boss in the Necromancer’s Den dungeon last month. A Gryffindor would have probably run headfirst into it, not stopping to think, because they were just that brave—or stupidly reckless. Evelyn had retreated and planned because she wanted the experience and the rewards from defeating it.

The front door thumped under three heavy knocks and Evelyn paused, the peeler in her hand hovering just above the half-peeled potato in her hand as the sound echoed throughout the house. Petunia huffed angrily as she brushed her hands on the apron around her neck before she then made her way towards the door.

_(Thin with deep shadows under his eyes, tremors shake his hands as he looked out at the crowd gathered before him, looking for those few familiar faces_—_the ones he wanted weren’t there, but he still somewhat welcomed the ones he did know, they had saved him after all, hadn’t they?_—_the crowd gasps in shock and horror as his tongue dripped with Veritaserum.)_

The sound of the vacuum cut off, but Evelyn couldn’t hear it, eyes unfocused and milky white as she was pulled from one vision and into another.

_(Tremors once again set his hands off, but this time he looked himself again, healthy and well_—_stuck inside for a year as he recovered and learnt what had happened in his absence_—_they would have never allowed for them to have been sent there of all places_—_why had Auntie and Uncle passed so soon before they had been born_—_heart in his stomach he knocks thrice.)_

“Petunia Dursley?”

The voice was both familiar and unfamiliar all at the same time—a voice she had heard in her dreams as she dreamt about the days when she and Harry had lived with their parents. It wasn’t possible for who she thought was outside the door, to be outside the door. He wasn’t supposed to be here now. _How _was it possible that he was here now?

She had seen it, the trial as it was decided that he was innocent and had been falsely imprisoned, but the trial had never happened Before, and he had died a man on the run. It had never been revealed that he had been the scapegoat for someone they had never suspected, for someone who had betrayed the only people in the world that had called him a friend.

“Evie?”

At the sound of her brother’s voice, Evelyn jerked free of her thoughts and spun around to find him stood behind her, looking fairly concerned as he looked over her facial features. He must have then seen something for he stepped forward slightly so that he could take one of her hands into his own to squeeze it. Her heart jumped at the gesture. Then… a smile began to grow on her face, growing bigger and bigger until it looked completely unhinged, as she realised what was happening.

Harry’s eyes grew wide at the unusual behaviour. “Evie? What d'you see?” Then his attention darted to the doorway of the kitchen, as the shrill voice of their aunt began to increase more and more in volume. “Who’s at the door?”

_“Your kind is _not _welcome here!” _

“Family,” Evelyn replied as she tugged her brother behind her and quickly made her way through the kitchen and towards the hallway. Her heart began to beat like a drum once she caught sight of the scene playing out before her. In front of her aunt—who was trying desperately to shove the door closed to no avail—was a tall man in a leather jacket. His long black hair had been pulled back into a low messy half knot and he was shoving against the door just as desperately as the hag was to close it. His grey eyes were filled to the brim with emotion.

As he moved, the sleeves of his jacket were pulled about and Evelyn caught sight of the numerous tattoos that covered his skin. She didn’t need to **observe** him to know who he was. He looked exactly like Evelyn had pictured him too whenever she would dream of a family lost.

“Uncle Sirius.”

Everything froze as though the world had been placed on pause. The hag stiffened as though a bucket of ice-cold water had been poured over her. Harry jerked behind her, his fingers tightening their grasp on her hand, but Evelyn just knew that his heart had begun to beat rapidly much the same as her own. Petunia then began to turn a bright red and her lips thinned into a barely visible line as she refused to turn her back on the wizard at her front door.

The wizard in question, however, had frozen and his eyes had grown wide as he looked over the two small figures that were the twins.

“Padfoot?” Harry questioned after another moment of silence at passed, as he moved around Evelyn so that he was now stood beside her instead of behind. His eyebrows frowned as he looked at the Black before them as though he was a magical fantasy character that he had never expected to be real. Like Evelyn had once looked at them all.

“You’ve grown so much…” It was barely more than a whisper, but they had all heard it all too clearly.

Evelyn took a few steps forward, pulling her little brother with her. He looked better than she had pictured him too, her brother’s godfather, for having suffered cold, wet, and tortured by his own survivor’s guilt on a frozen rock out in the middle of the sea. She wondered how long ago the trial had been. Clearly long enough for him to get well enough to come for them. She was sure that was why he was here, anyway, as she couldn’t see Sirius Black letting the twins slip from his fingers for a second time.

“Have you come to take us home?” she asked as she raised a hand to carefully brush her fingers across his skin, as though she was making sure he was real. He sighed at the contact and cupped her hand in his larger palm, as he turned warm grey eyes to look at her. He didn’t seem unnerved by her own bright green eyes and she wondered how long she had actually had them. Perhaps just from the night of. Sirius had arrived at the cottage just moments after Hagrid had to take the twins away, after all.

The long black hair that cascaded down her back in waves and the slightest of curls shiftily changed to fiery red as Evelyn recalled that night when she had temporarily woken just in time to see her family murdered before her very eyes. Anger boiled inside of her as she recalled the man that had clutched her mother’s dead body to his chest. She blinked and shoved the anger back down as her aunt immediately inhaled a sharp breath at the sight; her nails digging into the flesh of her palms.

“The charm wore off,” Sirius muttered to himself, as he wrapped a strand of red around his index finger. The strand then fell as his attention flickered between her and Harry. “Do you-” He paused, licking his lips. His voice was low, and he sounded as though he was a drowning man just barely able to breathe. “Do you want to come live with me?”

“Yes,” the twins echoed together, without a moment’s pause or a second’s thought. Harry squeezed Evelyn’s hand as he looked at her from out the corner of his eye. When she nodded at him with a smile, he then looked back at Sirius. “Please, _please, _take us away.”

“We’re Evanses,” Evelyn began with a soft smile, ignoring the soft noise her aunt made at that declaration, “but we’re also Blacks.”

As if to make her point, Evelyn shifted her hair back to its ordinary colour once again. Metamorphmagus were a Black signature, after all, and in this world, James Potter was the son of Charlus Potter and Dorea Black. There were tears brimming in the corners of Sirius’ eyes, and Evelyn smiled again.

“Evie sees a lot of stuff,” Harry grinned at the slack-jawed expression that Sirius wore. “She tells me lots of stories.” 

The Black heir turned his attention back towards her, his eyes blown wide. Her metamorphmagus abilities would have been discovered at either birth or soon after… however, the other abilities she had wouldn’t have been known to them. She had only recently decided which of her abilities would be known to the world, which ones would be kept secrets. Only family and those she trusted wholeheartedly would be entrusted with the knowledge of her visions while the world would be shaken by the knowledge of her being a parselmouth.

“Can you really turn into a dog?” Her twin then shrugged, as though the thing he next said was nothing special. “We can speak to snakes.”

Evelyn sighed to herself as Sirius froze. It would seem that her brother needed to be taught the art of tastefulness regarding delicate matters. She could forgive him, anyhow, as he looked so excited to have his godfather before them, at the thought of finally being freed from the Dursleys hold. She felt the exact same way.

“I… see.”

Petunia made no move to prevent Sirius from taking the twins. She stood silently in the kitchen as she continued to peel the potatoes that Evelyn hadn’t gotten around too. She ignored the sounds of Evelyn packing up the twins' room into two black bags, leaving behind all the clothes and only taking the toys and books they had collected over the years. She ignored Sirius’ stony expression as Harry told him about all the things he had missed while he was away, not leaving a single thing that the Dudleys had done to the twins out.

When Evelyn came back down the stairs some ten minutes later with the bags thrown over her shoulders and a two-foot-long snake coiled around her neck, Petunia flinched but forced herself to remain focused on her task of making a wonderful dinner for her husband.

Then, as Evelyn turned to close the front door behind her after Sirius and Harry had left, she paused. She didn’t turn as she raised her voice ever so slightly so that it was heard by her aunt who was hidden away in the kitchen. “If it had been you and Uncle Vernon who would have died… I wonder if mum would have treated Dudley like you treated Harry and I.”

With that finally out in the open for her aunt to chew on, the young witch closed the door shut—both metaphorically and literally—on the last of her maternal family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sirius Black to the rescue! How exactly he was given a trial and the stuff concerning that will all be explained soon enough.


	6. Flectere Si Nequeo Superos, Acheronta Movebo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My upload schedule for my stories has gone all over the shop. However, I will say this. If a story is still up on my profile, then it will be uploaded. Be it in a week or seven months. I don’t force myself to write; I go with the flow of my muse. Which is why I try to write a few chapters before uploading the first one. I can only hope that all my lovely readers will be patient with me in turn.

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Six**  
**Flectere Si Nequeo Superos, Acheronta Movebo  
** _if i cannot sway the heavens, i will raise hell_

* * *

**(Monday the 5****th** **of August, 1985. 12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, England.)**

**The **palms of her hands slid up the cold bannister as Evelyn slowly climbed the never-ending stairs. Every step creaked under her light footsteps and she almost worried that the aged wood would give out beneath her feet. It was dark and musty, very much the grim place she had imagined it would be. It was also so much bigger than what she had been expecting. She distinctively remembered the scenes from the movies and the description from the books and found that only pieces of those fit into the hidden house.

There were countless stairs, leading both up and down. Endless corridors and doors that without her **[Eidetic Memory] **or her **Map **she would have become lost within seconds. It was like the Tardis from _Doctor Who_, due to the fact it contained far more on the inside than the outside hinted at.

The only light came from the gas lamps that hung from the walls. She had pictured peeling wallpaper and worn carpet but found that none of those things greeted her as she walked through the house, taking her time to look at everything it had to offer. It was dark and musty. But it was also still the same grand place she had once wondered it could be. Walburga Black had only been dead a few months now, after all. Not nearly enough time for the house to fall into disarray.

Despite leaving the Dursleys house on their fifth birthday, the twins hadn’t arrived at Grimmauld Place until a week later.

There had been buses, mundane buses, and a lot of walking. Sirius had delayed their arrival so that they could go shopping. They had spent their nights in a hotel in central London and had spent their days walking through all the stores they could fit into their days. Sirius had wanted them to have everything their hearts desired. Whatever they wanted. Price had been no issue for him. He hadn’t blinked when the zeros came in and had only grinned when he had handed over the money.

Clothes. Furniture. Books. Games.

He had brought them anything and everything they had looked at with interest. No matter what it had been, Sirius had had no problem with buying it, so eventually, Evelyn had been forced to place herself into the responsible adult position, as neither Sirius nor Harry could be trusted with money.

She had had to physically wrangle her brother away from a gold chessboard in some fancy, expensive store she hadn’t looked at the name of. Harry was obsessed with gold. He was a niffler in messy-haired human form. Sirius hadn’t been much surprised by it and he had laughed boomingly, as he explained that their father had been much the same. There were things that Evelyn had never been able to tell her brother, for the simple fact that she didn’t know the answers, but Sirius did.

There was sadness in his eyes whenever he would speak about their parents, but he still answered every question thrown his way about the people James Potter and Lily Evans had been.

Her hand wrapped around the knob of the door and Evelyn pushed it open with a shove, before then stepping into the drawing-room she knew held a tapestry of the family tree on its walls. It looked much like she had expected it to. The same faces and names painted onto the tree. The same scorch marks where people had been blasted from the tree. She stepped beside the wall slowly, carefully, taking in all the faces and names. Burning her family into her mind. She brushed her fingers across Sirius’ black mark and Regulus’ solemn face.

Brushed her fingers across the destroyed portrait of her father, lingered on the script of his name.

As he was connected to Dorea Black, the twins were too connected to him.

Harry had had his portrait burnt as well, but not Evelyn. Her portrait had been left as it was. A small little portrait of her five-year-old face, with those killing curse eyes. She tilted her head to the side as she examined it. Questioned to herself why it had been left alone while the rest of her family had been blasted from the wall like crushed bugs under a boot heel.

Maybe she could fix them.

There were so many names and faces that had been blasted, long before Walburga had taken over the job of doing so. All because they hadn’t fit into the cookie-cutter idea of perfection the family held. Her grandmother remained on the tapestry intact, however, her portrait still visible. Her marriage had been an acceptable one then, even if it had been to a Potter.

She shook her head before then turning to leave the room behind and continue with her tour. A figure crossing the landing stopped her in her tracks, however. He was easily recognisable. There weren’t many house-elves that would be walking through the Black ancestral home as he was, after all. Sirius hadn’t mentioned much of the wizarding world. There had been a few pieces of magical information sprinkled in conversation throughout the week, but nothing too major. The only magic they had seen had been moments before Grimmauld Place had appeared before them, pushing the opposite houses out of its way as it slid into place.

He hadn’t mentioned Kreacher either.

She wondered how her brother would react to the slavery of the wizarding world.

“Filthy blood traitor and mudbloods in Kreacher’s mistress’ home.”

Evelyn let an eyebrow creep up her forehead as she stared at the elf. There were only a few inches of height between them. Kreacher glared at her from the corner of his eye as he slowly moved through the hallway. Then the warm touch of scales against her bare skin drew attention, as Cassiopeia began to slither her way out from under the large jumper Evelyn wore. She watched as the snake slowly climbed her body like a beanpole, before wrapping herself around Evelyn’s neck.

Then the viper turned her head towards Kreacher, and her forked tongue flicked out as she tasted the air. 

** _“Not much meat on it.”_ **

Without taking her attention from the elf, Evelyn smiled in amusement at her familiar’s words. Filthy. Filth. That was how much of the wizarding world viewed members of her family. Blood traitors and mudbloods. Half-breeds. As though the fact that they had broadened their family past incest made them filthier than the rest.

In Evelyn’s eyes, it was the other way around.

The purebloods were the ones with dirty blood.

** _“Even if there was, you would still be barred from eating him.”_ **

Kreacher froze as her hissed reply echoed, as though a petrifying curse had been thrown at him. He slowly turned on the spot to face her, his eyes blown wide as he noted the snake that was coiled around her neck like a questionable scarf. She rose a hand to lightly rub across the blue and green keeled scales that lined Cassiopeia’s back, a small smile etched across her lips.

** _“Shame. Rude thing asking to be eaten.”_ **

The elderly elf didn’t look as though he knew what to do with the information before him. A filthy mudblood, a half-breed, possessing the gift of Salazar Slytherin? Evelyn briefly wondered if the older generation of followers had known the true blood status of their precious Lord. She couldn’t see why they wouldn’t have. They would have attended school during the same time, with her second cousin a year older than the 'Dark Lord' himself, who would have gone by the name of Tom Riddle.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

I am Lord Voldemort.

The half-blood who pretended to be pure. The snake who had murdered her parents because they had dared to stand against him. The one who had tried to kill both her and her brother, and who will undoubtedly try over and over again until it finally _stuck. _That is, if Evelyn didn’t put a stop to him before then.

She wondered if those in the wizarding world said it without the t, as it was meant to be said, or with it, like the world Evelyn had come from Before.

“It was nice to meet you, Kreacher.”

Evelyn slipped past the still frozen house-elf and mentally rolled her eyes as Cassiopeia slid down her body slightly so that she could hiss into his face. She was possessive, her slippery familiar. The young witch planned to grow a friendly relationship with the elderly elf. She wouldn’t have a relationship with him as Sirius did. Not when it led to what it did.

Her eyes hardened momentarily.

Sirius Black would live for years to come if Evelyn had her way. His canon death would never come to be. She would never allow it to. There were many deaths in the series that she had no plans of changing, no desire to save the person. Evelyn had her little bubble of precious people and as long as these within it were safe, she didn’t much care for the rest of the world.

** _“I couldn’t smell it.”_ **

Evelyn paused and briefly closed her eyes.

Salazar Slytherin’s locket, the locket that held a piece of Tom Riddle’s soul, hadn’t been in the room it was supposed to. Had Kreacher moved it? Had someone already come and stolen it as it had been in the series? Walburga Black had died months before Sirius had shown up on the steps of 4 Privet Drive.

She then titled her head to the side.

Kreacher had moved it once the Order had moved into Grimmauld Place. He had placed it into his cupboard, which was located in a corner opposite the pantry. Evelyn needed to find it. She needed to know if it was there or if it had been moved, or if it had simply not been removed from the cave it had once been kept. The original timeline no longer existed.

Her existence had changed it already.

Sirius taking the twins away from the Dursleys had changed it.

It was at times like this that Evelyn wished she could force a vision, but she couldn’t. They came to her on their own. There was simply no way for her to learn how to control them, make herself see what she wanted to see. Everything would be so much easier if she could.

“Evie!”

She turned at the familiar sound of her brother’s voice and smiled at the sight before her. Harry looked much the same as he always did. However, there was also a glow to him that she had never seen him have before. At least, not while they were in presence of the Dursleys. Lately, he had been aglow with joy and happiness wherever they went.

“What is it, Harry?”

“We’re making food soon, but Padfoot said he can’t cook very well.” He then blinked, green eyes thoughtful and concerned behind the lens of his glasses. “Should we teach him?”

She laughed at the expression across his face. “If you wish to, Harry, I imagine that Sirius would love to learn from you.”

“Okay.” He smiled back at her, before disappearing down the stairs and around the corner, towards where the kitchen was located. Evelyn stood where she was, smiling to herself as she listened to Harry and Sirius happily converse. She would have never imagined that this would be her life. At least, not so soon.

She had had plans, of course, to make sure that Sirius would be proven innocent. She had had plans of making sure she and Harry, or at the very least Harry, would be removed from the 'loving care' of the Dursleys and placed into Sirius’. She had had plans in case none of the others worked.

Evelyn would have run with Harry and never given the United Kingdom a passing glance. Neither she nor her brother owed the wizarding world their lives. Evelyn was selfish. If none of her plans for making sure Harry had a loving family to protect him had worked, she would have left the wizarding world to fend for themselves.

Her brother might have the destiny of being the hero of the wizarding world, but Evelyn did not.

She would be the shadow behind him, the one that would deal with the threats that he didn’t know about. She would do everything she could to protect her little brother and make sure that, for once, he would have as normal as a childhood someone could have in a world of magic.

Even if that meant she had to turn to the darkest side of magic to accomplish that goal.

After all, Grimmauld Place boosted the progression of all **[Dark Magic] **related skills by 100% while inside its walls.

There was no way that Evelyn wasn’t going to be taking advantage of that. Taboo magic meant little to her. She would learn it all, master it all, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop her. All spells, in the end, could be used for both light and dark purposes.

Evelyn had no use for ridiculous good and evil labels when it meant power at her fingertips, power that could be used to save those she had claimed as her own.

Dumbledore was going to hate her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wonder who can guess what else has been changed in this story. Sirius Black has been proven innocence, but what else is there for Evelyn to discover? I would love to hear some of your theories!


	7. Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t think that will be many more chapters before the first book plotline starts. I don’t want to linger in Evelyn and Harry’s childhoods for too long after all. Expect a few more chapters of relationship building and all that, with jumping ahead in the timeline and then… _Hogwarts!_

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Seven**  
**Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum  
** _if you want peace, prepare for war_

* * *

**(Thursday the 17****th** **of March, 1987. Brewing Room, The Basement, 12 Grimmauld Place, Islington, London, England.)**

**Chalk **dust drifted to the cold stone floor as Evelyn’s arm moved from side to side across the large chalkboard before her, her hand moving in a blur as she rapidly wrote out equations for the latest project she had begun working on. Her long, long hair swayed with her movements in the low ponytail she had thrown it in to keep it out of her face, out of her way.

It reminded her of how she had been Before, when she had been far too busy and poor to have her hair cut, too inexperienced to cut it herself, and so she had simply allowed it to grow, and grow, and grow until it became so long that she began to sit on it. This time around, however, as money wasn’t something her family was short on, it was instead due to pureblood nonsense. It was unbefitting for a lady to have short hair, after all, and she had to play the part of pureblood regardless of her actual half-blood status.

She was the future Heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, after all.

Hold her head high. No slouching. Mind her manners and her words and remember to use the correct spoon at the dinner table. Understand the hereditary of the family. Arcturus Black the Third was the head of the family and his word was law. Sirius came after him as his heir and Evelyn was below them both but above everyone else in the family as Sirius’ heir. Etiquette lessons were long and tiresome, but she kept silent and pushed through so that Harry could slouch, so that he could continue being simply Harry.

She stepped back slightly, her arm hovering in mid-air as she took a moment to read through her work, carefully looking through her equations for mistakes, for somewhere where she might have gone wrong as even one tiny little mistake could prove itself fatal. She needed everything to be perfect before she even began experimenting.

It had been two years since the twins had moved into Grimmauld Place.

It had been only a year since the twins had been blood adopted by Sirius, where they had become his children more than would be possible with simple muggle adoption papers. It hadn’t been a tradition blood adoption, where Sirius’ blood would have completely replaced that of James Potter’s but instead, it had been… _mixed. _According to the paternal lineage spells performed on the twins after the potion and ritual had been completed, they now biologically had two fathers while Lily Evans remained their only mother.

The entire ordeal had made Evelyn’s head spin as she had attempted to work it all out, her memories of blood adoption in the fanon mixing with the smallest amount of information on its inner workings she had managed to pry from Sirius’ tightly sewn mouth and the few ingredients in the potion she had managed to **observe**.

Harry hadn’t quite understood it, nor did he really care. He had just been simply overjoyed at the thought of having two fathers and his yell of surprise the morning after had had Evelyn racing from her bed to his room, only to discover it had been a cry of surprise and excitement. Her little brother no longer needed glasses to see, after all.

There hadn’t been much difference in the twins' appearances after the adoption, other than Harry’s suddenly crystal-clear vision. They had already had Black blood running through their veins, after all, due to their grandmother being Dorea Black in this canon and fanon mixed world.

But now, Sirius was also their father, and that added a layer of protection against anyone who would be stupid enough to try and take the twins away from him. Or more so, take Harry away as he was still the Boy-Who-Lived while Evelyn was… well, not the Girl-Who-Lived. She wasn’t much of anything, really, in the eyes of the public. Not yet anyway.

Killing curse eyes moved across the chalkboard and her arm rose, chalk in hand as she stepped forward once again to continue with her equations. It was advanced work. Very advanced. Most definitely not something that she should be working on at the tender age of six and a half, but here she was, hidden away in the brewing room of Grimmauld Place’s basement, with chalkboard after chalkboard of equations. No-one had ever called Evelyn normal, after all, even before it had become her name.

What did they expect really, when her Before namesake had been an overpowered redheaded witch and Lily Evans had been a fiery redheaded witch?

She needed to get this right.

No.

She had to get this right.

Evelyn turned away from the chalkboard and moved towards the large island counter in the middle of the room, where sat her brass cauldron and all the ingredients she needed to brew the potion tenfold. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe that she would get it right the first time around, as her **[Potion Brewing] **skill still had many levels left to go through before it was maxed out at which point she would never fail a potion no matter how difficult it was.

As it was, she had recently managed to get it to Lv.: 42—the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Soon enough she would become a Master Potioneer that would put even Severus Snape to shame. Spy or not, she still didn’t like the man. Couldn’t excuse what he had done and what he would do. He was a difficult character—person—to label, but Evelyn was firm with her belief that if her mother had never died, then he would have never switched sides. His love for her mother wasn’t healthy, nor did she believe that he deserved that love.

She would be getting that picture of her mother back, as well, and it still made her blood boil and her hair shift to fiery red when she thought of the man ripping a part of her family picture, happy and in love, in half so that he could pretend that her mother was smiling at him.

Aunt Cassiopeia repeatedly reminded her that she needed better control on her metamorphmagus abilities as for it not to expose how she felt inside. The same grandaunt who had only been too pleased to find that Evelyn had named her familiar after her. Or rather her namesake, but the witch Cassiopeia still liked to say the snake Cassiopeia was named after her.

And if she saw him bullying her brother or Neville at Hogwarts, she would make him pay teacher or not. Both boys were _hers_. Neville was all shyness and nerves rolled up into a ball of cinnamon, and she had been so glad when Augusta Longbottom had brought him over to introduce to the twins. Alice Longbottom was still Evelyn’s godmother, after all.

“Why am I not surprised to find you locked up in here, little snake?”

Evelyn didn’t react much to the sudden voice, as she had felt the magical signature moving closer and closer to the basement for the last minute or so, but she did pause what she was doing, the recently sharpened blade in her hand hovering ever so slightly above the ingredients she had been chopping up. Even if she had been startled and managed to cut herself with the knife, her health regeneration was currently sat at .16 and the cut would have disappeared before she had even had a chance to blink.

She glanced over her shoulder, turning towards the door.

“Good afternoon, Aunt Andromeda.”

Her potions teacher smiled at her, affection warming the healer’s smile as she moved into the room before then stopping before the chalkboards that covered the wall and were filled with Evelyn’s equations and work. The witch turned back to prepping the ingredients that she needed to brew the first attempt of the potion.

“You seem to have somewhat figured out wolfsbane potion by reversing the process.”

Andromeda Tonks née Black’s voice and mannerisms betrayed none of what she felt inside, but Evelyn knew her aunt. There was surprise and pride. Andromeda had been the only one to teach the twins potions, after all, with Remus Lupin taking up most of the other lessons they needed to learn. A few other relatives were sprinkled in elsewhere. Always a relative and never a stranger. None of the Black family trusted outsiders to teach the twins anything.

Remus had mentioned he was an outsider, but Sirius had simply scoffed in amusement and called him a kept man. The pair had begun dating in their third year, after all. Wolfstar burnt bright in this world. Evelyn couldn’t see Nymphadora birthing his son at all, not when she too had seen him as Sirius’ boyfriend for months now. 

“I did, but I’m no doubt missing steps.”

“And why are you making wolfsbane potion, little snake?”

Evelyn almost rolled her eyes but instead settled for raising a single eyebrow at her aunt. Ladies didn’t roll their eyes. “There is a room down the hall covered in claw marks, where there are magically reinforced shackles bolted into the wall.” She moved her crushed aconite to one side. “I know that we have that room not because Papa and Uncle Remus enjoy getting rough now and again, just as I know why the week around a full moon Harry and I stay with you, Uncle Edward and Dora.”

While Harry had chosen to call Sirius dad, Evelyn had decided on Papa. For Padfoot. Dadfoot, in a sense.

Andromeda laughed and her uncanny resemblance to Bellatrix Lestrange—who Evelyn had thankfully only seen in old pictures her aunt hadn’t been able to get rid of and newspapers the witch had managed to obtain through her budding relationship with Kreacher—became less and less.

“I did tell Sirius that they would not be able to hide anything from you.”

Evelyn smiled in amusement. With both **[Observe] **and her seer abilities at her disposal, there wasn’t much at all that her family could keep from her. Add on top of that already great advantage she also had her **[Eidetic Memory] **thus making it impossible for her to forget anything that she had ever seen or heard.

“The potion will help if I can figure out how to make it properly,” Evelyn then replied. “Uncle Remus shouldn’t have to worry that he will accidentally hurt us. That blame, if something were to happen, should be placed on the shoulders of Fenrir Greyback but I don’t think that monster would care.”

“No,” her aunt agreed, “I cannot see him caring, either.” She looked over Evelyn’s equations once again before then turning around to face her, a proudful smile etched across her face. “I think you are on the right track, little snake. Now, speaking of snakes, where is your lovely familiar?”

“Out hunting for food in the gardens.”

“I had hoped to get a chance to milk her again while I am here.”

Evelyn laughed as she remembered the last time Andromeda had milked Cassiopeia. Her familiar had hated the entire experience and had sulked around the house for an entire week afterwards. She hadn’t thought it fitting for someone of her beauty to be used in such a way. Cassiopeia had quite the personality, after all.

“How is Polaris?” she instead asked, referring to the beautiful granian foal her aunt had brought her last year for her sixth birthday. Evelyn had originally thought of calling her Equuleus as she had been an extremely undersized foal when the witch had first met her but had instead decided on Polaris for her snowy white coat. The Black naming theme had always been one that appealed to her inner astrologist, after all, so on the tradition continued.

Her family had been quick to realise that Evelyn also loved animals of all shapes and sizes. There were many animal books in her bedroom, books about both magical and non-magical animals. Everyone fully expected her to become a Magizoologist after attending Hogwarts and Sirius had no problem with allowing her to have as many pets as she wanted, as long as she took care of them, which was… _dangerous._

Evelyn, after all, had no self-control when it came to animals.

There were currently six pets under her care after she had taken responsibility for a nest of four baby puffskeins after finding them under the living room sofa. Then there was also the kneazle kitten that her Grandmother Augusta had brought her as a Christmas present and who she had named Leonis, more as a combination of Leo and Felis, than the genitive of Leo.

“She is growing well and soon she will be strong enough to allow you to ride her.”

“Good. I can’t wait to ride her. I imagine winged horses will be the only way I’ll be able to fly. I hate brooms, much to Harry and Papa’s horror.”

Andromeda shook her head with a laugh and Evelyn smiled in amusement as she recalled the dropped jaws the men had displayed once she had dropped that particular bombshell. Much like in canon, Harry simply adored flying. Every single free moment he had throughout the day was spent outside in the gardens, learning new tricks on the broom Sirius and Remus had brought him for his birthday. With his obsession with gold, it was no wonder that once her brother was old enough, he would become an unstoppable seeker. 

“Are you ready for your birthday, little snake?”

Evelyn hummed. “Yes. It will be… different, of course, but I understand that is it something that needs to be done. Harry doesn’t understand quite as much, but he knows that it will be different from last year’s birthday. Being introduced back into the wizarding world as we will be.”

“I imagine that Harry will not wander much from either Sirius’ or your side,” Andromeda replied.

“Probably not.”

It was definitely something that had been constantly lingering in the back of her mind. The twins’ seventh birthday party which would be unexpectedly held at Malfoy Manor. They hadn’t even met their second cousin Narcissa nor her death-eater husband. Evelyn was worried about how Harry would react to Draco, but she imagined something similar to book canon.

The entire party was all a pureblood chessboard game, however.

She imagined that a good majority of the purebloods that would be at the manor would be hoping that one or both of the twins found their soulmates there. Having the Black family attached to their own would only boost their own families. The Potter family also had many advantages to it, like the twins’ great-grandfather Fleamont’s booming potion business.

Her attention flickered over to her aunt, as she glanced at the messy handwriting that was sprawled across the inside of the older witch’s arm, partly visible for all to see as the sleeves of Andromeda’s blouse cut off mid-forearm. Another difference from Rowling’s world. It was looking more and more like only the foundations of the world had been kept the same as everyone else Evelyn found had proven itself to be different.

She stared at the first words her uncle had ever said to her aunt and the flowery imaginary that framed it.

No-one had ever once mentioned soulmates to the twins before, but considering they had been living in the ‘care’ of the Dursleys, she hadn’t expected to learn much at all from them. Her aunt and her husband had never taught the twins anything, but that they had to be normal and ordinary, and plain. Evelyn had been quick to shut that all down. Without her, Harry wouldn’t have even known what his name was until he began to attend school.

After her eleventh birthday, her soulmark would suddenly appear somewhere on her body. There were different types of soulmates, of course, but almost everyone had one. It was rare not to. More often people had an unrequited mark, where they had their soulmates words written on them, but their soulmate didn’t, in turn, have their words written on them.

Evelyn thought it crueller than simply not waking up with one.

But, then again, just because a bunch of words told someone that they had to be with that person, didn’t, in turn, mean that they did. Andromeda and the witch Cassiopeia had said as much when the two women had sat the twins down to explain everything about soulmates, as Sirius had fled when they had originally asked him.

With her low **Luck**, Evelyn could only imagine who her soulmate would turn out to be.

She really did need to figure out how to increase it, but, if it hadn’t increased by the time the twins’ letters arrived, she would most definitely shove some stat points into it. It had become a rule of hers, to not touch the points she had saved up until her stat level reached past a hundred or she desperately needed the stats for an action or spell that needed to be performed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve finally revealed why the Soulmate tag has been attached to this story from the beginning! Woo! Can anyone guess the soulmates of the twins? Also, I would love to hear some of your ideas about other pairings. Remember, however, soulmates don’t decide pairings. I know quite a lot of people hate soulmate plots, but I hope my viewers will remain with me.
> 
> On a side note, yes, the nest of puffskeins Evelyn had found is, in fact, the nest the gang had canonically found dead in Grimmauld Place when they had been cleaning it. Poor little puffballs. Evelyn will have a _lot_ of pets, thus there will be a lot of animals, so I hope that isn’t a problem with everyone! I don’t expect everyone to remember them all, however. Most of them will simply be background, mentioned here and there pets, but quite a few of them will have roles in the story down the line.


	8. Dramatis Personae

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the long wait for this chapter, but I’ve suddenly begun struggling to write this series. It’s been hard, thus why I haven’t written anything. I don’t want to just throw out some garage because people are waiting, some more patiently than others.

**Modus Vivendi**

**Chapter Eight**  
**Dramatis Personae  
** _the masks of the drama_

* * *

**(Friday the 31****th** **of July, 1987. The Ballroom, Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England.)**

**Limelight.**

The blinding gaze of public attention.

It had never been something that Evelyn had ever craved to have in her life, this one or the one Before because she had been perfectly content to remain hidden away in the shadows. It was where she was most comfortable being, after all. However, her love for her little brother was far more powerful than her want for comfort, so when Harry had found himself quickly swarmed by people soon after the birthday _celebrations _had begun, she couldn’t rightfully leave him in their clutches.

Especially in the clutches of children who had been raised on the ideals that people without pure blood were _less. _She knew her brother. The night would have quickly turned around as Harry laid into those that dared to voice those ideals in his presence, and they needed the night to go well.

It was her job as the oldest to protect him, so she had done just that.

Thus why she had found herself in the situation she was currently in, and although it wasn’t exactly how she had originally planned for things to go, well… what better way of introducing herself properly to the wizarding world than by knocking the most pompous of them off their feet and onto their rich arses?

The Lv.:14-Quest **[Heir of Slytherin]** seemed to agree with her.

It had also raised a few questions about where exactly in the Slytherin family tree her family had come in. She knew a certain someone who shouldn’t be named that would most definitely kick up a fuss if she proved to be the rightful heir in place of him, but she could deal with that at a later date, as right now, there was more peacocking that needed to be done.

Evelyn looked out at the group of pureblood children who had gathered around in front of her from underneath her lashes, as they stared back in varying expressions of awe-struck. The reasoning behind said awe wound herself around the young witch’s shoulders, the glimmering lights from the overhanging chandeliers reflecting off keeled scales, illuminating the rich greens and blues, the vibrant purple pupils that watched them all without breaking gaze.

It had only been too easy for her to get Cassiopeia to agree to show off as she was as, as her name suggested, Evelyn’s familiar was vain.

“What did she say?”

Evelyn almost hadn’t recognised the boy with the huge eyes who had asked before, looking back and forth between her and her familiar, but she had recognised the girl that hovered in his shadow from pictures that Narcissa Malfoy—Aunt Cissy—had forced her to examine weeks before when she had first arrived at Malfoy Manor. She had had to learn who everyone was, after all, never mind the fact that she had also been learning about a part of both of her fathers’ sides of the family at the same time.

Not that James Potter had ever thought anyone bar Sirius Black as family from the Black family.

Evelyn had already gone through the family tree with Aunt Andromeda, learnt who was related to her and whatnot. But the rest of the wizarding world had still needed to be identified and there were now so many different names and faces locked in her mind. She would never forget them, no matter how much she might wish to.

An heir and a spare.

_That _was a mentality that a lot of pure-blooded families adopted.

Pansy Parkinson was the spare while her younger brother was the heir, the way most pureblood families preferred it, the spare being a female that they could use in marriage contacts to obtain more leverage in the wizarding world. More power. The Black family had done it best, marrying into many other powerful families.

The children before Evelyn—and she said children, but really, most of them were around her age or older, but reincarnation was a funny thing to measure—weren’t the only ones staring at the show that she was putting on.

From all around her, she could feel the piercing gazes that were focused in her direction. The crowd that had once been surrounding Harry had dispersed to instead surround her and her twin had quickly plastered himself to their father’s side after Evelyn had gestured in his direction when Harry had first begun to move towards her.

He was so very protective of her, after all, but Evelyn hoped to keep her brother’s parseltongue abilities a secret. She didn’t want anyone to think him dark. Evelyn thought him too light for that, her little starlight, a childhood nickname that still brought out the pink in her brother’s cheeks.

There was amusement sparkling in Sirius’ eyes.

Evelyn could also see that same amusement reflected in her great-grandfather’s eyes and well, it _had _been Arcturus Black’s plan from the beginning. To show the rest of the pureblood families how much _better _and _superior _the Black family were, even if Evelyn was _only _a half-blood born of a muggleborn. It had only been too amusing to see him say muggleborn instead of mudblood; the world twisting around in his mouth like it was a disgusting thing instead of the truly disgusting thing that he had wanted to say.

He had to play nice with her, however, the one that had been picked as Sirius’ heir and the one with all the little gifts. Not that anyone knew of all her gifts. She still had aces up her sleeves that she would never reveal to anyone because she didn’t want to. She had let her seer ability become known because it wasn’t accurate, and she couldn’t be blamed if something went wrong because… she didn’t know it all.

At least, to their knowledge.

So no, Evelyn would never reveal her true nature as someone who had been reborn into a fictional world that she knew almost everything about, nor would she ever reveal that she saw the entire world as one giant roleplaying game that gave her an unfair advantage over everyone else.

She had to live in this world, after all, and no-one played fair when it was their own life on the line.

There was also pride in Arcturus’ eyes, not for Evelyn per se, but rather that the parseltongue ability had shown up in the Black lineage. He hadn’t accepted that it had come from Lily Evans’ blood and had instead deluded himself into thinking that it had instead come from James Potter’s and while Evelyn had gotten other things from her biological father, her ability to speak to snakes that hadn’t come from him and she refused to let anyone attempt to push her mother further through the mud.

Her mother who had performed dark magic to protect her children, her mother who had refused to step down or move aside.

Evelyn was proud to be the daughter of Lily Evans.

She wore her half-blood status with pride. It wasn’t something she was ashamed of or wished to hide. She was her mother’s daughter. Anyone that tried to tell her differently would find themselves in a world of hurt because Evelyn did not take kindly to anyone disregarding those who were _hers. _

The older generation of pureblood families that had shown up were all quietly speaking to each other in hushed voices, as they looked at her from the corners of their eyes. She could only imagine all the marriage contracts that would soon begin flooding in for her hand for their sons. If they thought that any of them would be accepted, they didn’t know who they were dealing with in the slightest and would most definitely be in for another shocking turn of events.

After all, only Evelyn could decide what become of any sort of love life she might have, not a piece of paper, nor the words that would one day appear on her arm like a branding. Her soulmate would also be in for a shock if they thought that the words meant anything at all to her, the girl from another reality where soulmates hadn’t been a thing or if they thought the words meant that Evelyn belonged to them.

She belonged to no-one, after all, but herself and death.

** _“That one looks inbred.”_ **

Evelyn hid her amusement as she ran her fingers alongside Cassiopeia’s jawline, as her eyes momentarily flickered over to the boy in question, to Vincent Crabbe, who looked nothing at all like his movie or book counterparts. The Crabbe line had—much like many other pureblood families—bred within the lines, and he had suffered for it.

Her father hadn’t, as Sirius Black was one of the most handsome wizards Evelyn knew of, and not even the fact that he was in a happy, loving relationship with her uncle had stopped the flood of marriage contracts that he often took out while in the living room to laugh over. Most didn’t acknowledge the relationship, and those that did… well, it wasn’t uncommon for purebloods to have what others deemed pieces on the side.

** _“I agree, but I can’t rightly say that to them.”_ **

“I want my cousin.”

Evelyn blinked at the words spoken like a child demanding their toys back. She then turned her attention back to the group who had been pushed aside slightly as a small figure of blonde hair had pushed his way through, a small figure that Evelyn knew to be her cousin. Draco Malfoy.

He had been very quick to claim Evelyn as his own before the pair had even met. It had been quite the first interaction between the two cousins when Evelyn had first stepped foot on the Malfoy property.

“Hello, Draco.”

He flushed slightly, and Evelyn was once again reminded of how much he was still a child. He hadn’t grown up into the bully he would just yet. There were moments of it, but overall, he was still a child. They all were. Before Evelyn, there were Slytherins that she knew would become Death Eaters. She couldn’t fault them for that; however, they were still children simply following their parent’s orders.

Most children did that.

She and Harry listened to their father, Harry more so than Evelyn, but they listened all the same.

Draco moved forward and snagged her hand, pulling sharply as he moved away from the group. Or tried to, at least. Evelyn planted her feet and smiled slightly as he staggered at the unmoved force she was. Her **Strength **was far too high for Draco to move her unwillingly.

“Don’t be rude, Draco,” Evelyn said displeasingly.

He eyed her out of the corner of his eye, and she could see the slight sneer that was beginning to grow on his face. A sneer he would almost master later. Still, he listened, however, refusing to release her hand as he stood at her side in front of the group.

Evelyn looked over her shoulder slightly, where Harry was glaring in Draco’s direction. Their first interaction hadn’t gone well, much like it hadn’t in the books or movies. This time however it had been due to her, over both boys claiming her as their own. Evelyn had felt much like a toy as both of her arms had been pulled at different ends, as the older generation of her family had simply watched.

Sirius had even laughed under his breath, his smile widening as she had glared at him because he had found the entire interaction amusing.

In the end, she had put a stop to it. She belonged to no-one but herself. No-one could _claim _her as their own, but the closest one with a claim on her with her twin. Because he was her twin, her other half, her one constant in the world.

Harry had puffed up after that, and Draco had sulked all day.

Sometime afterwards she had wondered if that was how her mother had felt. First with her sister and her best friend, and then after that, with her best friend and the boy who had had a crush on her. A toy being pulled at both ends.

Evelyn was a bit of a hypocrite, however.

No-one could claim that she was theirs, but she had done the same to others. Claimed them as hers, that is. Her brother. Her father. Her aunt and uncles. Dora. They were hers and she was protective of them something furiously, like a mother protecting her cubs, an alpha protecting their pack.

Draco couldn’t move her because she hadn’t wanted to move. She needed to continue the show, needed eyes focused on her so that they weren’t focused on them. Evelyn could shoulder all the harsh looks and cruel words that had been thrown at her brother in the books and the movies when his parseltongue abilities had been revealed to the world.

She would prove that _he _was still alive when everyone called her brother crazy.

She would prevent the deaths that had consumed her family.

Evelyn would carry the weight of the world on her shoulders so that they didn’t have to, she would take their places so that they wouldn’t be hurt. She didn’t know why she had been brought back from death, why she had been reborn, but she refused to put her second life to waste.

That was just who she was.

“Cassiopeia said—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What is with me and putting little bits of dialogue in most of my chapters, I need my guys talking more! Oh well. Next time. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, that it was worth the wait, but well… I can’t please everyone. I’m hoping that the next chapter is both longer and easier to write. That I don’t leave my readers hanging for another three months. Again, I’m terribly sorry about that!


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